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LIB  R  A^  K  Y 


Theological     S  em  i  n  a  r  y  , 

PRINCETON,     N.    J. 


Case 

Shelf 

Roof: 


s*©*i  on.,  .ni  >.  O.A.Qfij. 


C44y 


CORRECTIONS. 

Page  69,  line  T — read  50,000  oxen. 

Page  83,  line  1 — erase  Bibliography. 

Page  133,  line  11  from  bottom — read,  the  Stuarts  from  the 
Tudors,  the  Tiidors  from  the  Plantagenets,  and  the  Plantagenets 
from  the  house  of,  etc. 

Page  144,  line  12  from  bottom — for  ■"each"  read  ''lack." 

Page  148,  line  3 — erase  '"not." 

Page  158,  line  10  from  bottom — read  12  Gershonites. 

Page  169,  last  line — for  '*or"  read  ""for. '' 

Page  182,  line  7  from  bottom — read  '"Zerubbabel." 

Pages  182-3. — Tlie  discrepancies  in  numbers  between  Ezra 
and  Nehemiah  are  better  accounted  for  by  supposing  changes  to 
have  occurred  in  the  interval  between  the  formation  of  the  two 
lists,  than  by  imputing  them  to  erroneous  transcription. 


THE    PEITATETJCH 


VINDICATED 


THE  ASPERSIONS  OF  BISHOP- COLENSO, 


WILLIAM  HENRY  GREEN, 

PROFESSOR   IN   THE   THEOLOGICAL   SEmNART,    PRINCETON,    N.    J. 


"  If  they  hear  not  Moses  and  the  Prophets  neither  will  thej  bo  persuaded  though 
one  rose  from  tho  dead.' — Luke  xvi.  31. 


NEW  YORK: 
JOHN  WILEY,   56   WALKER  STREET. 

1863. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congres^  in  the  year  1863,  by 

WILLIAM  H.  GREEN, 

I„  the  Cerfs  Office  of  the  I.istrlct  Court  of  the  nnl'.d  States  for  the  Souther.) 

District  of  New  York. 


PREFACE. 


The  aim  of  this  Treatise  is  precisely  what  its  title  imports. 
It  does  not  pretend  to  be  an  exhibition  of  the  grounds  on 
which  the  faith  of  Christendom  reposes  in  adhering  to  the 
historical  truth,  the  Mosaic  Authorship  and  the  inspiration 
of  the  Pentateuch ;  nor  is  it  designed  to  afford  a  com- 
plete refutation  of  the  objections  of  all  opposers.  It 
occupies  itself  exclusively  with  the  recent  extraordinary 
publication  of  Bishop  Colenso,  containing  an  examination 
of  his  arguments  seriatim  with  proofs  of  their  inconclusive- 
ness  and  of  the  indubitable  verity  of  the  statements  which 
he  impugns. 

If  the  book  reviewed  in  these  pages  had  come  from  the 
hands  of  a  professed  infidel,  it  would  probably  have 
attracted  no  attention  whatever.  The  notoriety,  which  it 
has  gained,  is  due  not  to  any  novelty  in  its  arguments,  or 
speciousness  in  its  objections,  nor  to  any  special  merit  in 
the  mode  of  their  presentation,  but  solely  to  the  fact  that 
a  Bishop  belonging  to  one  of  the  leading   churches  of 


IV  PREFACE. 

evangelical  Christendom  has  undertaken  to  destroy  the 
faith  which  once  he  preached.  This  joined  with  his  loud 
professions  of  candour  and  disinterested  love  for  the  truth, 
his  repeated  insinuations  of  the  insincerity  of  those  with 
whom  he  was  once  associated,  and  the  triumphant  air 
which  he  assumes,  as  if  confident  of  an  easy  victory,  has 
given  to  it  for  the  moment  a  factitious  importance. 

For  scholars  no  refutation  is  needed;  w^hat  is  here 
written,  has  been  prepared  with  the  view  of  guarding  the 
unwary  from  being  imposed  upon  by  bold  assertions  and 
baseless  assumptions,  and  of  affording  those  who  have  not 
the  leisure  for  a  more  extended  examination  of  the  subject, 
the  evidence  that  though  the  faith  of  some  may  be  over- 
thrown, nevertheless  the  Foundation  of  God  Standeth 
Sure. 

If  the  author's  life  is  spared,  he  hopes  to  be  able  at  some 
future  day  to  prepare  a  more  extended  work  upon  the 
criticism  of  the  Pentateuch,  and  perhaps  upon  that  of  the 
Old  Testament  generally. 

The  titles  of  the  chapters  are  adopted  from  Bishop 
Colenso  and  contain  his  objections  in  the  order  in  which 
they  are  stated  by  himself.  The  references  to  his  book  are 
throughout  to  the  American  Edition,  issued  by  the  Apple- 
tons. 

Princeton.  February,  1863. 


CONTENTS 


CHAP. 


PAGK 


Preliminary  Remarks 9 

I. — The  Family  of  Judah 30 

II. — The  Size  of  the  Court  of  the  Tabernacle,  com- 
pared WITH  THE  Number  of  the  Congregation  .  47 
III.— Moses  and  Joshua  addressing  all  Israel  .        .          52 
IV. — The  Extent  of  the  Camp,  compared  with  the 
Priest's  Duties  and  the  Daily  Necessities  of 

the  People 55 

V. — The  Number  of  the  People  at  the  First  Muster 
compared  with  the  Poll-Tax  raised  six  Months 

previously 62 

Tl. — The  Israelites  Dwelling  in  Tents     ...  69 

YII. — The  Israelites  Armed 74 

VIII. — The  Institution  of  the  Passover       ...  80 

IX. — The  March  out  of  Egypt 83 

X. — The  Sheep  and  Cattle  of  the  Israelites  in  the 

Desert 86 

XI. — The  Number  of  the  Israelites  compared  with 

the  Extent  of  the  Land  of  Canaan  .        .        102 


VI  CONTENTS. 

CHAP.  PAGK 

Xn. — The  Number  of  the  First-borns  compared  with 

THE  Number  of  Male  Adults    .        .        .        ,        110 
XIII. — The  Sojourning  of  the  Israelites  in  Egypt       .        117 
XIV. — The  Exodus  in  the  Fourth  Gteneration      .        .        135 
XV. — The  Number  of  Israelites  at  the  Time  of  the 

Exodus 141 

XVI. — The  Danites  and  Levites  at  the  Time  of  the 

Exodus 156 

XVII. — The  Number  of  Priests  at  the  Exodus,  compared 
with  their  Duties,  and  with  the  Provision  jla-De 

for  them 163 

XVIII. — The  Priests  and  their  Duties  at  the  Celebration 

OF  THE  Passover        .        .        .  '     .        .        .        174 

XIX— The  War  ON  MiDiAN 178 

Conclusion 193 


PEELIMmARY   REMARKS. 

Men's  treatment  of  testimony  is  largely  influenced  by 
the  prepossessions  with  which  they  approach  it.  The 
evidence  of  a  witness,  whom  we  know  to  be  of  excellent 
character  and  upon  whose  truthfalness  we  have  every 
reason  to  rely,  will  command  our  respect  and  confidence. 
If  there  are  obscurities  in  some  of  his  statements,  and 
even  apparent  inconsistencies  between  them,  it  might 
answer  the  purposes  of  an  opposing  counsel  to  magnify 
these  to  the  greatest  possible  extent,  to  scout  every 
method  of  solution  that  is  suggested,  however  naturally 
it  may  offer  itself,  and  to  represent  the  difficulties  in 
question  as  manifest  and  hopeless  contradictions,  which 
utterly  discredit  the  witness.  But  an  impartial  judge  or 
jury  will  be  disposed  to  examine  the  matter  patiently, 
knowing  that  nothing  is  of  easier  or  more  frequent 
occurrence  than  seeming  and  superficial  discrepancies, 
when  the  facts  are  imperfectly  known,  and  which  would 
be  at  once  removed  if  some  missing  links  could  be  sup- 
plied. As  long  as  any  rational  hypothesis  suggests  itself, 
therefore,  by  which  the  various  statements  can  be  har- 
monized, the  credibility  of  the  witness  is  not  impugned ; 
and  even  if  some  things  should  remain  unexplained, 
his  general  truthfulness  and  fidelity  will  enable  us  to 
credit  them. 

1* 


10  PBELIMINAET   REMARKS. 

In  fact,  no  statement  is  ever  made,  and  no  narrative 
ever  related  without  leaving  much  to  be  supplied  men- 
tally by  the  hearer  or  reader.  Everything  can  be  con- 
verted into  an  absurdity,  if  no  allowances  are  to  be 
made,  nothing  to  be  admitted  which  is  not  in  the  letter 
of  the  narrative,  however  clearly  it  may  imply  it.  Such 
a  plain,  every-day  statement,  as  that  "the  Prince  of 
Wales  visited  America,"  involves  much  which  is  not 
stated,  which  is  left  to  the  presumed  intelligence  of  every 
one  to  supply.  Suppose  it  should  be  made  a  serious 
objection  that  the  ocean  lay  between  America  and  Bri- 
tain, presenting  an  insuperable  barrier  to  his  crossing;  or 
that  the  distance  is  so  great  that  even  if  the  ocean  were 
not  there,  no  prince  would  ever  have  consented  to  such  a 
pilgrimage.  And  if  the  objector  had  an  arithmetical  turn, 
he  might  amuse  us  by  drawn  out  calculations  as  to  how 
far  a  man  can  swim  without  exhaustion,  how  many  days 
this  prince  must  have  been  buffeting  the  waves  before 
he  reached  America ;  how  many  pounds  of  provisions 
he  must  have  carried  on  his  back  to  support  him  during 
this  long  period,  and  how  many  furlongs  he  must  have 
been  in  height  to  have  rested  on  the  bottom  in  mid-ocean 
when  exhausted. 

If,  in  the  midst  of  this  tirade,  any  one  should  mildly 
suggest  that,  after  all,  the  statement  is  credible,  if  we 
only  assume  that  he  came  over  in  a  vessel,  such  a  result 
might  be  scouted  as  a  "pure  assumption,  unwarranted 
by  anything  that  is  found  in  the  statement  under  exa- 
mination" (Colenso,  p.  144),  and  only  showing  how  "  men 
will  do  violence  to  the  plain  reading  of  it  in  order  to 
evade  a  difficulty "  (p.  64).  "  The  story  says  nothing 
about  this  vessel,"  "  as  surely  it  must  have  done  "  if  one 
was  really  employed  (p.  101).     It  is  "  a  plain  evasion  of 


PRELIMINABY   REMARKS.  11 

the  distinct  meaning,  only  resorted  to  in  order  to  escape 
from  a  position  of  extreme  difficulty,  to  suggest "  such  a 
thing  (p.  125).  On  the  other  hand,  it  might  be  added, 
the  author  of  the  story  does  not  seem  to  have  had  a  sus- 
picion that  there  was  an  ocean  there,  or  that  a  vessel 
would  be  required.  It  involves,  consequently,  so  many 
impossibilities  and  absurdities,  and  such  manifest  igno- 
rance on  the  part  of  its  author,  that  ''I  do  not  hesitate 
to  declare  this  statement  to  be  utterly  incredible  and 
impossible  "  (p.  114).  We  might  be  obliged  to  leave  the 
objector  undisturbed  in  his  incredulity,  though  our  faith 
in  his  sanity  would  not  be  increased,  nor  would  our 
faith  in  the  prince's  visit  to  this  continent  be  seriously 
shaken. 

Now,  we  have  no  idea  that  anything  which  we,  or  any 
one  else,  can  say  in  reply  to  the  like  objections  which 
Bishop  Colenso  has  brought  against  the  Pentateuch  will 
alter  the  state  of  his  mind,  or  that  of  others  like-minded 
with  him.  The  difficulty  is  in  the  whole  attitude  which 
he  occupies.  He  has  picked  out  a  few  superficial  diffi- 
culties in  the  sacred  record,  not  now  adduced  for  the  first 
time,  nor  first  discovered  by  himself  They  seem,  how- 
ever, to  have  recently  dawned  upon  his  view.  He  was 
aware,  long  before,  of  certain  difficulties  in  the  scriptural 
account  of  the  creation  and  deluge  ;  and  instead  of  satis- 
factorily and  thoroughly  investigating  these,  he  was  con- 
tent, he  tells  us,  to  push  them  ofij  or  thrust  them  aside, 
satisfying  himself  with  the  moral  lessons,  and  trusting 
vaguely,  and,  as  he  owns,  not  very  honestly  (p.  47),  that 
there  was  some  way  of  explaining  them  (pp.  4,  6).  The 
other  difficulties,  which  have  since  oppressed  him,  he  then 
had  no  notion  of;  in  fact,  so  late  as  the  time  when  he 
published  or  prepared  his  Commentary  on  the  Eomans 


12  PRELIMINAET    REMARKS. 

(p.  215)  he  had  no  idea  of  ever  holding  his  present 
views.  As  there  is  nothing  brought  out  in  his  book 
which  unbelievers  have  not  flaunted  and  believing  expo- 
sitors set  themselves  to  explain  long  since,  we  are  left  to 
suppose  that  his  theological  training  as  a  minister  and  a 
bishop,  and  his  preparation  as  a  commentator,  could  not 
have  been  very  exact  or  thorough.  If  the  Pentateuch 
is  the  book  of  absurdities  he  asserts,  and  these  are  so 
palpable  as  he  asserts,  and  yet  he  never  saw  it  or  ima- 
gined it  until  now,  his  wits  must  have  been  recently 
sharpened,  or  his  acquaintance  with  the  book  of  which 
he  was  a  professed  teacher  and  expounder  must  have 
been  limited  indeed. 

His  mission  to  the  Zulus,  however,  fortunately  or 
unfortunately  as  the  case  may  be,  broke  the  spell.  He 
went  out  to  teach  the  Zulus  Christianity,  and  now,  at 
length,  he  is  obliged  to  study  the  bible  on  which  that 
religion  is  based.  The  result  is  the  astounding  discovery 
that  the  Pentateuch  and  Joshua  are  utterly  "  unhistori- 
eal."  They  are,  in  fact,  if  he  is  to  be  credited,  the  most 
stupendous  fabrications  and  the  silliest  fabrications  which 
ever  were  put  together.  How  it  will  fare  with  the  rest 
of  the  Bible,  when  he  comes  to  apply  his  arithmetic  to 
it,  we  cannot  say.  But  he  has  threatened  to  carry  his 
work  of  devastation  into  the  New  Testament  (p.  29),  and 
we  are  probably  to  be  some  day  made  to  stare  by  seeing 
this  too  vanish  before  our  eyes,  the  baseless  fabric  of  a 
vision.  Whether  even  Romans  will  be  spared,  upon 
which  he  has  already  commented  in  a  different  state  of 
mind,  and  which  he  now  commends  to  those  who  want 
something  "  to  fill  up  the  aching  void  "  created  by  this 
sudden  and  hopeless  demolition  of  the  Pentateuch  (pp. 
214,  215),  remains  to  be  seen. 


PEELIMINAKT  REMARKS.  13 

Bishop  Colenso  expects  great  results  from  the  publica- 
tion of  these  discoveries,  for  he  still  seems  to  fancy  them 
such.  His  eyes  have  just  been  opened,  and  he  expects 
all  the  world  to  stand  agape  as  he  has  done,  and  to  expe- 
rience the  same  revolution  in  sentiment.  The  British 
church,  at  least,  he  is  very  solicitous  to  win  over.  He 
does  not  see  why  he  must  give  up  his  lordly  honours  and 
his  comfortable  bishopric,  (p.  34,)  for  denouncing  Moses, 
and  railing  at  the  Son  of  God.  He  does  not  see  why  the 
church  should  not  be  so  enlarged  as  to  include  every 
unbeliever  in  the  realm,  (p.  36,)  who  thinks  with  him  that 
the  Bible  is  at  least  as  good  as  the  Vedas,  and  that  it 
contains  everything  necessary  for  salvation,  (p.  84,)  see- 
ing there  is  nothing  to  be  saved  from.  If  this  is  not  the 
case,  in  five  years  no  honest  and  ingenuous  youth  will 
enter  its  ministry,  (p.  87.)  So  thoroughly  have  the  foun- 
dations of  Moses  and  the  prophets  been .  shaken  by  this 
new  assault.  So  great  is  the  danger,  which  the  race  of 
bigots  who  still  superstitiously  and  uncandidly  cling  to 
the  truth  of  the  books  of  Moses,  are  preparing  for  them- 
selves and  the  church  to  which  they  belong. 

We  must  beg  leave  to  request  the  Bishop  to  be  calm. 
The  foundations  of  earth  and  heaven  are  not  yet  under- 
mined. The  Pentateuch  has  borne  assaults  before  un- 
scathed, and  it  will  not  be  damaged  by  his,  even  if  he  is 
a  missionary  bishop ;  nor  by  the  "  Essays  and  Reviews" 
which  he  holds  in  such  esteem.  Colenso  is  not  the  first 
arithmetician  who  has  fancied  that  he  had  squared  the 
circle  ;  nor  is  he  the  first  who  has  been  mistaken  in  his 
fancy. 

We  shall  not  dispute  the  truth  of  the  account,  which 
the  Bishop  gives  us,  of  the  way  in  which  he  reached  his 
present  convictions,  nor  the  sincerity  with   which   he 


14:  PEELIMINART   BEMABKS. 

holds  them.  It  is  quite  likely  that  he  arrived  at  them 
reluctantly,  and  wrote  a  long  letter,  which  he  never 
sent,  to  a  professional  friend  to  aid  him  in  getting  rid  of 
his  doubts  and  solving  his  difficulties.  And  that  since 
then  he  procured  copies  of  Hengstenberg,  Havernick,  and 
Kurtz,  of  whose  writings  he  seems  to  have  had  no  know- 
ledge before,  but  which  he  obligingly  informs  his 
readers,  among  the  rest  of  his  disclosures,  (p.  75,)  "  may 
be  found  in  an  English  translation  in  Clark's  Theological 
Library,  easily  accessible  to  any  one."  Their  answer  to 
his  difficulties  failed  to  satisfy  him.  Though  he  has 
spent  "less  than  two  years"  (p.  12) in  examining  the  sub- 
ject he  is  unchangeably  convinced  that  the  books  of  the 
Pentateuch  are  '  unhistorical,'  that  Moses  never  wrote 
them,  nor  were  they  written  by  any  one  in  the  Mosaic  age. 

He  will  tell  us  in  his  next  volume,  i.e.  we  may  sup- 
pose, when  his  studies  are  further  advanced,  and  he  has 
had  time  to  digest  or  swallow  some  of  the  multitudinous 
German  conceits  on  the  subject — "the  manner  and  the  age 
or  ages  in  which  they  have  been  composed"  (p.  214).  The 
assertion  of  the  unhistorical  character  of  the  Exodus 
sweeps  away  much  of  the  succeeding  history,  but  Co- 
lenso  has  made  up  his  mind  to  the  consequences,  and 
looks  calmly  on  the  ruin  he  has  made. 

We  would  think  better  of  his  honesty,  if  the  publica- 
tion of  this  book  had  been  preceded  by  a  manly  resigna- 
tion of  his  bishopric,  seeing  he  can  no  longer  fulfil  the 
vows  made  in  the  assumption  of  the  office.  If  the 
Church  of  England  is  then  so  far  gone  as  to  reinvest  him 
with  it  in  his  sense  of  it,  with  his  understanding  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  after  he  has  made  this  frank  avowal  of 
his  belief,  or  rather  his  unbelief,  he  will  not  at  least  have 
obtained  or  held  the  position  by  false  pretences. 


PRELIMINARY   REMARKS.  15 

With  the  best  disposition  to  deal  fairly  and  truly  with 
him,  we  cannot  allow  the  fairness  and  candour  of  his 
arguments.  He  has  again  and  again  withheld  data 
necessary  to  a  solution  of  difficulties  which  he  is  magni- 
fying, though  he  adduces  these  very  same  data  in  some 
other  connection  to  create  a  fresh  contradiction,  showing 
thereby  that  it  is  not  innocently  or  ignorantly  done. 
More  than  one  case  of  this  special  pleading,  showing  a 
determination  at  all  hazards  to  make  out  a  case,  will 
come  to  light  before  we  have  done  with  the  book.  His 
sweeping  ad  captandum  assertions  of  the  unfairness  and 
mental  reservations,  which  he  everywhere  ascribes  to  the 
defenders  of  the  common  faith  of  Christendom,  do  not 
sound  well  beside  his  flings  at  Hengstenberg  for  "a 
sweeping  charge  of  dishonest  concealment  of  the  truth," 
(p.  69,)  and  that  in  a  case  where  it  is  pretty  hard  not  to 
believe  it  true. 

However,  all  this  has  little  to  do  with  the  case.  The 
personal  character  of  the  Bishop  is  of  small  concern  to  us 
or  our  readers.  Even  as  to  the  fairness  or  unfairness  of 
his  mode  of  arguing,  he  may  be  allowed  to  suit  himself. 
All  that  we  care  about  is  the  weight  and  validity  of  the 
arguments  themselves.  This  we  shall  proceed  to  ex- 
amine. 

The  Bishop  proposes  by  arithmetic  to  overthrow  the 
Mosaic  record.  Where  antiquities,  philology,  astronomy, 
geology,  and  ethnology  have  failed,  let  us  see  what 
arithmetic  can  do.  It  is  said  that  figures  cannot  lie,  and 
yet  nothing  is  more  wofully  deceptive  than  figures  in  the 
hand  of  an  uncandid  or  unskilful  man.  The  first  requi- 
site in  order  to  accurate  results,  is  to  see  that  all  the  ele- 
ments of  the  problem  are  present  before  attempting  its 
solution.     But  this  is  prevented  at  the  very  start  by  the 


16  PRELIMINART  REMAKKS. 

Bishop  peremptorily  forbidding  the  admission  of  any 
thing  not  explicitly  stated  in  the  text,  however  naturally 
to  be  presumed,  however  necessary  to  the  right  under- 
standing of  the  statements  made.  Any  assumption  re- 
quired by  the  consistency  of  the  narrative,  or  involved 
in  its  truth  and  correctness,  is  instantly  ruled  out.  To 
suggest  it,  is  to  make  a  desperate  shift  to  save  the  credit 
of  an  absurd  and  self-contradictory  story.  And  the  fact 
that  such  a  natural  and  necessary  assumption  would  har- 
monize everything,  instead  of  leaving  the  veracity  of  the 
narrative  unimpeached  as  most  men  would  judge,  but 
makes  it  in  the  Bishop's  eyes  worse  for  the  author.  His 
not  mentioning  it,  however  plainly  his  narrative  implies 
and  requires  it,  is  proof  positive  not  only  that  it  did  not 
take  place,  but  he  did  not  see  how  essential  it  is  to  the 
consistency  of  what  he  relates,  and  how  impossible  his 
story  is  without  it.  If  anybody  says  that  the  Pj'ince  of 
Wales  came  to  America,  and  does  not  at  the  same  time 
expressly  add,  that  he  crossed  the  ocean  in  a  vessel,  his 
story  is  absurdly  false,  according  to  the  bishop,  and  the 
narrator  a  dolt. 

The  Bishop,  it  has  just  been  said,  rules  out  assumptions 
not  in  so  many  words  found  in  the  text.  But  he  does  not 
always  do  this.  We  are  in  danger  of  doing  him  injustice. 
He  is  sometimes  awake  to  the  consciousness  that  words 
imply  more  than  they  express,  and  appeal  to  the  good 
sense  and  imagination  of  the  interpreter  or  hearer.  He 
accordingly  makes  up  for  his  refusal  to  allow  what  is  not 
written  in  the  text  in  explicit  terms  in  certain  cases,  by 
the  readiness  with  which  he  admits  such  assumptions  in 
others.  There  is  only  this  remarkable  singularity  in  his 
demeanor.  If  any  assumption  reconciles  difficulties  and 
shows  the  narrative  of  Moses  to  be  truthful  and  self-con- 


PRELIMINAUT   REMARKS.  17 

sistent  it  is  inadmissible ;  that  is  a  perversion  of  the  plain 
meaning  of  the  text ;  that  is  something  of  which  there  is 
no  intimation  in  the  story  ;  it  is  a  disingenuous  insertion 
by  theologians  intent  on  saving  Moses'  credit  by  fair  means 
or  the  reverse.  But  if  an  assumption  dexterously  made 
can  aggravate  a  difficulty  or  create  the  appearance  of  a 
contradiction,  he  has  less  hesitation  about  it.  As  for 
example,  when  it  suits  him  to  assume  (p.  108)  that  the 
borrowing  of  the  Israelites  was  done  at  a  momenHs  notice 
after  they  had  been  suddenly  summoned  to  depart ;  that  (p. 
176)  Jacob's  sons  brought  up  each  time  sufficient  corn  from 
Egypt  for  a  year's  consumption  ;  that  (p.  195)  the  priests 
must  have  been  charged  with  slaying  the  passover  and 
sprinkling  the  blood,  on  which  the  whole  apparent  force 
of  his  argument  and  ridicule  rests,  when  (on  p.  202)  he 
confesses  that  "  it  is  certainly  true  that  the  references  to 
the  passover  in  the  books  of  Exodus  and  Numbers  do 
not  a'ppear  to  imply  in  any  way  that  the  priests  were 
called  into  action  in  the  celebration  of  this  feast,"  etc., 
etc. 

Another  element  essential  to  the  integrity  of  the  prob- 
lems he  sets  himself  to  solve,  but  which  Colenso  quietly 
ignores,  is  the  general  character  and  authority  of  the 
Mosaic  record.  He  throws  in  his  pennyweight,  and  points 
triumphantly  to  the  opposing  scale  as  it  kicks  the  beam. 
But  it  is  because  he  has  forgotten  to  put  in  the  massive 
weights  which  belong  there.  He  shows  us  the  difficulties 
on  one  side,  as  he  conceives  them  or  creates  them,  and 
leaves  the  impression  that  there  are  no  difficulties  on  the 
other  side  whatever.  Here,  he  tells  us,  are  these  absurd 
and  self-contradictory  stories.  Explode  them,  and  every 
difficulty  will  vanish.  He  is  ready  with  his  conclusion  at 
every  fancied  inconsistency :    the  sacred  record   is  an 


18  PRELIMINARY   REMARKS. 

absurd  storj — the  Pentateuch  is  unhistorical — Moses 
never  wrote  it. 

But  apart  from  the  inspiration  of  the  first  five  books 
of  the  Bible,  the  evidence  of  their  authenticity  and  Mosaic 
authorship  cannot  be  set  aside  by  a  stroke  of  the  pen. 
There  is  such  an  accumulation  of  proof  from  such  various 
sources,  that  the  conviction  which  it  produces  is  irresisti- 
ble. A  man  might  as  well  try  to  unsettle  the  faith  of 
the  English  people  in  the  genuineness  of  Magna  Charta 
or  prove  a  volume  of  the  Acts  of  Parliament  to  be  ficti- 
tious. A  volume,  which  lies  at  the  basis  of  a  nation's 
constitution  and  history,  as  the  Pentateuch  does,  can 
never  be  shaken  until  the  foundations  of  human  know- 
ledge are  overturned. 

And  then  it  has  evidence  of  an  irrefragable  kind  pecu- 
liar to  it  as  a  product  of  inspiration.  The  works  of  God 
evidence  themselves  to  be  such  by  the  divine  stamp 
impressed  upon  them.  And  the  word  of  Grod  in  all  its 
parts  reveals  its  divine  character  and  authority.  Whence 
came  the  religion  of  the  Pentateuch,  with  the  sublimity 
of  its  doctrines  and  the  heavenly  purity  of  its  precepts  ? 
Contrast  it  with  the  religion  of  Egypt,  from  which  Israel 
had  just  come  out,  and  with  that  of  Canaan  to  which 
they  were  going.  Contrast  it  with  the  religion  of  the 
most  polished  and  enlightened  nations  of  antiquity,  and 
it  is  like  life  from  the  dead.  Whence  came  its  predic- 
tions which  have  been  fulfilled  or  are  fulfilling  ?  Whence 
came  that  minute  system  of  typical  representation  point- 
ing forward  to  the  distant  future,  every  particular  of 
which  was  so  strangely  matched  by  its  counterpart  fifteen 
centuries  later  ?  Any  man  who  will  look  at  the  corres- 
pondences between  the  Mosaic  institutions  and  the  Gospel 
of  Christ,  in  their  exactness  and  their  multitude,  must 


PRELIMINARY   REMARKS.  19 

feel  a  sentiment  of  awe  coming  over  him.  The  shadows 
of  the  incarnate  Saviour  which  are  projected  in  fact 
along  the  whole  history  of  the  chosen  seed  must  make 
him,  who  sees  them,  exclaim,  This  is  the  finger  of  God. 
The  man  who  holds  in  his  hands  the  chart  of  an  eclipse, 
and  notes  from  his  own  observation  of  its  occurrence  the 
exactness  of  its  correspondence  with  the  celestial  pheno- 
menon, could  never  be  made  to  believe  that  its  lines  were 
drawn  haphazard  by  an  ignorant  boor.  Nor  can  he,  who 
has  compared  the  ritual  of  Moses  with  the  great  High 
Priest  of  our  profession  and  the  Sacrifice  for  human  sin, 
believe  that  the  former  was  the  work  of  an  unaided 
man. 

And  when  the  Son  of  God  explicitly  says,  John  v.  46, 
"Moses  wrote  of  me,"  all  who  have  any  reverence  and 
love  for  this  heavenly  Teacher,  will  undoubtingly  receive 
his  testimony.  The  utter  want  of  confidence  in  Jesus 
and  reverence  for  his  words,  which  Colenso  displays  (pp. 
80-32),  is  among  the  most  painful  things  in  his  book. 
When  a  man  gives  up  his  faith  in  the  authority  and  infal- 
libility of  Christ's  instructions,  and  would  not  expect  him 
"  to  speak  about  the  Pentateuch  in  other  terms,  than  any 
other  devout  Jew  of  that  day  would  have  employed," 
what  is  there  left  of  his  Christianity  which  is  worth 
retaining  ?  And  yet  is  it  not  a  legitimate  sequence  from 
his  rejection  of  the  mediator  of  the  old  covenant,  that  he 
should  reject  likewise  the  mediator  of  the  new  ?  And  is 
it  not  a  fresh  fulfilment  of  our  Lord's  declaration  (John 
V.  47),  "  K  ye  believe  not  Moses'  writings,  how  shall  ye 
believe  my  words  ?" 

Now  we  would  not  give  up  the  word  of  Caesar,  or  Taci- 
tus, or  Thucydides  for  such  a  show  of  argument  as 
Colenso  adduces.     Much  less  would  we  give  up  that  of 


iSU  PEELIMINAET  EEMARK8. 

Moses,  whose  writings  are  better  attested,  whose  state- 
ments are  more  abundantly  confirmed,  and  whose  author- 
ity is  more  sacred.  Our  view  of  the  case  is  sufficiently 
expressed  in  a  sentiment  which  Colenso  quotes  (p.  16) 
from  a  friend  with  approbation,  but  which  contains  the 
severest  possible  satire  upon  his  own  book :  "It  should 
be  remembered  always  that  in  forming  an  estimate  of 
ancient  documents,  of  the  early  Scriptures  especially,  we 
are  doing  that,  which  is  like  examining  judicially  the 
case  of  one  who  is  absent,  and  unable  to  give  his  account 
of  the  matter.  We  should  be  very  scrupulous  about 
assuming  that  it  is  impossible  to  explain  satisfactorily 
this  or  that  apparent  inconsistency,  contradiction,  or  other 
anomaly,  and  charging  him  with  dishonesty  of  purpose, 
considering  that  ours  is  an  ex  parte  statement  and  inca- 
pable of  being  submitted  to  the  party  against  whom  it  is 
made." 

It  is  not  so  easy  a  thing,  therefore,  to  shake  off  the 
authority  of  the  Pentateuch  as  Colenso  seems  to  have 
imagined.  It  will  require  more  than  these  petty  diffi- 
culties at  which  he  carps,  and  more  than  all  unbelieving 
critics  combined  have  ever  yet  raked  together  to  over- 
turn it.  Suppose  that  he  has  found  something  which 
we  cannot  explain  or  reconcile,  shall  we,  therefore,  fly  in 
the  face  of  the  most  formidable  and  inevitable  difficulties  ? 
If  he  even  succeeds  in  discovering  some  mistake,  some 
inaccuracy  of  numbers  (which,  however,  he  has  not,  as 
we  shall  show  hereafter),  will  it  mend  the  matter  to  sub- 
vert the  most  certain  of  all  history  ?  Perhaps  some  day, 
upon  the  ground  of  the  discrepancies  in  the  army  of 
the  Potomac,  which  it  seems  the  President  and  Gen. 
McClellan  cannot  settle  within  85,000,  some  adventurous 
arithmetician  will  deny  the  fact  of  the  American  rebel- 


PEELIMINAEY  REMARKS.  21 

lion.  It  miglit  be  done  with  as  mucli  sense  and  pro- 
priety as  what  the  Bishop  has  undertaken  in  the  book 
before  us. 

The  Zulu  Bishop  has  also  forgotten  one  thing  of  which 
his  English  common  sense  should  have  reminded  him, 
that  an  argument  which  proves  too  much  proves  nothing. 
He  sets  out  to  prove  the  Pentateuch  non-Mosaic  and 
unhistorical.  Unfortunately,  his  argument  goes  far 
beyond  the  exigencies  of  this  demand.  It  proves  the 
narrative  so  absurdly  inconsistent  that  no  person  of  ordi- 
nary intelhgence  could  have  written  it  with  any  idea  that 
it  would  ever  be  believed.  It  must  have  been  conceived 
and  executed  in  the  vein  of  Munchausen.  Especially  if 
it  were  a  forgery  professing  to  be  the  work  of  Moses 
when  it  was  not,  it  would  have  been  more  dexterously 
pieced  and  less  clumsily  put  together.  It  is  only  simple, 
straightforward,  unsuspecting  narrators  of  truth  who 
relate  so  inartificially  and  leave  things  unexplained  for 
cavillers  to  fasten  upon.  In  proving  his  theorem  he  has 
only  reached  a  reductio  ad  dbsurdum  instead  of  a  Q.  E.  D. 

And  then  these  questions  of  pedigree,  chronology,  and 
population,  or  greater  trivialities  still,  with  which  his 
book  is  taken  up,  what  conceivable  connection  have  they 
with  the  material  facts  of  the  history  ?  Suppose  every 
one  was  obliterated  or  corrected,  what  appreciable  differ- 
ence would  there  be  at  last  ?  They  are  petty,  unessential 
matters  affecting  the  purport  of  the  whole  about  as  much 
as  microscopic  unevennesses  would  spoil  the  stability  and 
proportions  of  a  Corinthian  column.  Suppose  a  doubt 
could  be  thrown  on  the  size  of  Jacob's  family,  or  some 
other  number  or  date,  how  does  this  disturb  the  grand 
scheme  of  Providence  and  plan  of  grace  which  is  here 
developed  ?   or  even  the  great  features  of  the  national 


22  PRELIMINAKT  EEMAEK8. 

history  of  Israel  which  are  here  sketched?  If  something 
of  moment  had  been  laid  bare,  if  doubt  had  been  thrown 
on  some  essential  fact,  it  would  have  been  different ;  but  it 
is  impossible  to  rise  from  the  perusal  of  this  book  with  its 
great  swelling  words  without  feeling  that  this  is  after  all 
a  miserable  petty  business,  and  the  old  fable  of  the 
mountain  and  the  mouse  rises  involuntarily  into  one's 
thoughts. 

He  does  indeed  allude  to  questions  of  real  magnitude, 
as  the  Creation  and  the  Flood,  Here  are  points  which 
men  of  mark  have  grappled  with,  and  which  are  worthy 
of  their  pen.  Here  is  a  broad  border  land  of  Eevelation 
and  Science.  And  the  question  of  their  possible  recon- 
ciliation or  hopeless  discrepancy  is  one  of  vast  moment, 
upon  which  great  stores  of  learning  and  intellectual 
resources  might  be  profitably  laid  out.  The  ground  has 
been  traversed  by  men  of  the  highest  ability  and  learning, 
who  have  not  only  professed  themselves  satisfied  of  the 
essential  harmony  of  that  record  which  the  Creator  has 
written  in  the  crust  of  the  globe  respecting  its  original 
formation,  and  that  record  which  he  has  written  on  the 
pages  of  his  word;  but  have  owned  that  it  was  to 
them  one  of  the  most  astonishing  of  all  marvels  that 
Moses,  in  that  age  of  the  world,  should  have  produced  an 
account  which  without  interrupting  the  regular  progress 
of  man  in  scientific  inquiry,  or  leading  to  the  premature 
anticipation  of  scientific  results,  is  yet  in  such  minute  and 
accurate  correspondence  with  them.  The  marvellous 
agreement  in  outline  none  can  explain  away.  The 
details,  it  is  true,  are  not  yet  settled ;  perhaps  they  can- 
not be  for  a  long  time  to  come.  The  difficulty  is  that 
scientific  inquiry  has  not  yet  reached  its  last  result.  But 
where  men  of  the  largest  attainments   have  declared 


PEELIMINAEY   REMARKS.  23 

themselves  satisfied,  Colenso,  who  has  only  begun  to  read 
upon  the  subject,  need  not  cavil. 

The  history  of  his  opinions  on  the  subject  of  the  Deluge 
is  frankly  related  thus : 

"While  translating  the  story  of  the  Flood,  I  have  had  a  simple-minded, 
but  intelligent,  native, — one  with  the  docility  of  a  chUd,  but  the  reasoning 
powers  of  mature  age, — look  up  and  ask,  '  Is  all  that  true  ?  Do  you 
really  believe  that  all  this  happened  thus, — that  all  the  beasts,  and  birds, 
and  creeping  things  upon  the  earth,  large  and  small,  from  hot  countries 
and  cold,  came  thus  by  pairs,  and  entered  into  the  ark  with  Noah  ?  And 
did  Noah  gather  food  for  them  all,  for  the  beasts  and  birds  of  prey,  as  well 
as  the  rest  ?'  " 

That  circumstance  especially  which  satisfied  him  on 
this  point  was — 

"  that  volcanic  hills  exist  of  immense  extent  in  Auvergne  and  Languedoc, 
which  must  have  been  formed  ages  before  the  Noachian  Deluge,  and 
which  are  covered  with  light  and  loose  substances,  pumice-stone,  &c.,  that 
must  have  been  swept  away  by  a  Flood,  but  do  not  exhibit  the  slightest 
sign  of  having  ever  been  so  disturbed." 

His  ability  to  grapple  with  such  questions  as  this  is 
revealed  by  the  reply  he  makes  to  the  hypothesis  (we 
don't  say  that  it  is  ours),  "  that  ISToah's  deluge  was  only  a 
partial  one."     Nothing,  he  says,  is 

"  really  gained  by  supposing  the  Deluge  to  have  been  partial.  For,  as 
waters  must  find  their  own  level  on  the  Earth's  surface,  without  a  special 
miracle,  of  which  the  Bible  says  nothing,  a  Flood,  which  should  begin  by 
covering  the  top  of  Ararat,  (if  that  were  conceivable,)  or  a  much  lower 
mountain,  must  necessarily  become  universal,  and  in  due  time  sweep  over 
the  hills  of  Auvergne." 

The  good  bishop  does  not  seem  to  be  aware  that  the 
theory  involves  the  sinking  of  that  region  beneath  the 
surface  of  the  water  of  the  ocean  or  contiguous  seas,  and 


24  PJJELIMINART   REMARKS. 

its  subsequent  elevation.  This  would  certainly  have 
geologic  analogies  in  its  favour ;  but  whether  true  Oi  not, 
the  reply  he  makes  to  it  does  not  touch  the  point,  and 
merely  shows  that  he  had  not  the  conception  of  the  sub- 
ject he  was  arguing  about. 

That  the  Bishop's  astronomical  abilities  about  equal, 
his  geological,  may  be  inferred  from  the  following  speci- 
men on  p.  9.  He  is  cavilling  at  the  miracle  of  the  sun 
and  moon  in  the  days  of  Joshua,  and  repelling  as  inad- 
missible the  suggestion  that  the  physical  fact  which  lay 
at  the  basis  of  the  phenomenon  may  have  been  the  1 3m- 
porary  arresting  of  the  earth's  rotation.  We  could 
hardly  credit  our  senses  as  we  read  the  Bishop's  reply,  in 
which  he  holds  the  following  language  (p.  9). 

"But  the  Bible  says,  'The  sun  stood  still,  and  the  moon  stayed,'  J.>sh. 
X.  13  ;  and  the  arresting  of  the  earth's  motion,  while  it  might  cause  the 
appearance  of  the  sun  '  standing  still,'  would  not  account  for  the  moon 
'  staying.'  " 

We  would  like  to  know  whether  any  schoolboy,  who 
has  learned  his  first  lesson  in  astronomy,  can  beat  that. 
Does  not  the  man  know  that  the  moon's  diurnal  motion  in 
the  heavens,  as  well  as  that  of  the  sun,  is  apparent  and  due 
to  the  earth's  rotation  ?  *  We  see  imputed  to  him  works  on 
arithmetic,  algebra,  and  plane  trigonometry  for  schools. 
Can  it  be  that  his  studies  were  arrested  there,  and  that 
he  never  advanced  so  far  as  the  study  of  astronomy  ? 
Even  if  he  is  not  willing  to  build  up  his  faith  in  religion 
on  a  book  (p.  54),  might  he  not  without  injury  have 
built  up  his  knowledge  of  science  in  that  manner  ? 

At  any  rate  these  glimpses  satisfy  us  that  it  was  well 
for  the  Bishop,  and  for  us,  that  he  paid  heed  to  the 
maxim  of  Apelles,  Ne  sutor  supra  crepidam^  and  that, 
true  to  his  instincts,  he  is  content  to  peck  at  scripture 


PKELEVIINAEY   REMARKS.  35 

numbers.  We  stand  aghast,  as  we  fancy  over  what  a 
perplexed  wilderness  we  might  have  had  to  travel,  had 
he  gone  on  in  this  same  way  through  all  the  points  of 
physical  science  in  their  bearing  on  Christian  evidences, 
and  we  felt  obliged  to  follow  him.  No  traveller  beguiled 
by  ignis  fatuus,  through  bog  and  mire,  would  have  had 
a  worse  or  a  wearier  time.  We  congratulate  ourselves 
that  he  has  not  imposed  this  task  upon  us. 

These  physical  matters  are  mere  feints  and  side  issues 
apart  from  the  real  assault.  It  is  under  the  cover  of 
arithmetic  that  he  makes  his  deadly  charge.  He  has  no 
intention  of  scattering  his  fire.  He  professes  indeed,  in 
his  introductory  remarks,  to  have  detected  a  vast  number 
of  assailable  points,  thus  impressing  his  readers  with  the 
idea  that  he  has  sent  his  reconnoitering  parties  far  and 
near,  that  he  has  examined  the  intrenchments  of  Moses 
all  around,  and  that  he  could  make  a  fearful  onset  upon 
him  from  a  multitude  of  quarters,  if  he  were  so  disposed. 
But  he  has  not  chosen  to  plant  his  batteries  everywhere. 
He  tells  us  first  negatively  what  the  difficulties  which  he 
proposes  to  adduce  are  not  (p.  49).  They  are  not  those 
connected  with  the  creation  and  deluge,  nor  with  "  the 
stupendous  character  of  certain  miracles." 

We  must  pause  here  in  the  enumeration  to  say  that 
the  Bishop  believes  in  the  reality  of  miracles  or  he  does 
not.  If  he  does,  and  retains  any  faith  in  the  supernatu- 
ral facts  even  of  the  New  Testament,  why  does  he  array 
the  stupendous  character  of  miracles  here  as  creating  any 
special  difficulty  in  the  Pentateuch?  If  he  does  not,  but 
is  here  speaking  sincerely,  and  is  not  throwing  together 
a  mere  ad  capiandum  arra}^  of  possible  objections  to  the 
Pentateuch,  why  does  he  say,  (p.  51,)  "The  notion  of 
miraculous  or  supernatural  interferences  does  not  present 

2 


26  PKELIMLNARY   REMARKS. 

to  my  own  mind  the  difficulties  which  it  seems  to  present 
to  some"  ? 

Nor  do  his  difficulties  arise  from  "  the  trivial  nature  of 
a  vast  number  of  conversations  and  commands  ascribed 
directly  to  Jehovah,  especially  the  multiplied  ceremonial 
minutiae  laid  down  in  the  Levitical  law."  We  are  led  to 
infer,  then,  that  Colenso  would  esteem  it  unbecoming  in 
the  God  in  whom  he  believes  to  concern  himself  with  little 
things.  He  might  make  mountains,  but  not  atoms — ele- 
phants, but  not  animalculse.  He  might  make  general 
laws  for  the  conduct  of  human  life,  but  not  specify  in 
detail  meats  and  drinks,  though  he  would  thus  incorpo- 
rate the  lesson  that  the  smallest  and  most  indifferent 
actions  should  have  in  them  the  quality  of  religiousness, 
and  that  in  them  all  men  should  be  governed  by  a 
supreme  desire  to  please  him.  It  is,  in  short,  an  incor- 
poration into  an  outward  ceremonial  of  the  apostolic 
requirement — '  Whether,  therefore,  ye  eat  or  drink,  or 
whatsoever  ye  do,  do  all  to  the  glory  of  Grod.' 

Kor  are  his  difficulties  such  as  must  be  "  started  at 
once  in  most  pious  minds  "  by  the  regulations  of  the  Pen- 
tateuch respecting  slavery.  And  here  he  tells  us  of  the 
revulsion  of  feeling  which  these  created  in  the  mind  of  a 
"  very  intelligent  Christian  native  "  who  was  aiding  him 
la  his  translations,  and  whose  "  whole  soul  revolted " 
against  them.  The  Bishop  made  a  shift  to  get  over  the 
difficulty  for  the  present  by  telling  him  that  he  supposed 
"such  words  as  these  were  written  down  by  Moses,  and 
believed  by  him  to  have  been  divinely  given  to  him, 
because  the  thought  of  them  arose  in  his  heart,  as  he 
conceived,  by  the  inspiration  of  God,  and  that  hence  to 
all  such  Laws  he  prefixed  the  formula,  *  Jehovah  said 
unto  Moses,'  without  it  being  on  that  account  necessary 


PRELIMINARY   REMARKS.  27 

for  us  to  suppose  that  they  were  actually  spoken  by  the 
Almighty."  This  we  take  to  be  "the  thoroughly  com- 
petent, well-trained,  able  and  pious  native,  who  had 
helped  to  translate  the  whole  of  the  New  Testament  and 
several  books  of  the  Old,"  (p.  217),  and  whom  the  Bishop 
was  desirous  of  admitting  to  the  diaconate  without  com- 
pelling him  to  declare  that  he  "  anfeignedly  believed  in 
all  the  Canonical  Scriptures."  It  would  be  singular  if 
he  did  believe  in  them  with  such  teaching. 

It  is  not  enough  for  Colenso  that  Moses  should  have 
ameliorated  the  system  of  slavery  to  an  extent  which  has 
no  parallel  in  the  ancient  world.  If  he  would  justify  his 
claim  to  inspiration,  he  ought  to  have  put  Israel  at  once  un- 
der the  inexorable  regulations  of  a  perfect  and  ideal  state. 
He  should  have  made  no  allowance  for  the  hardness  of 
their  hearts,  Matt.  xix.  8 ;  none  for  existing  usages  or 
the  then  present  state  of  civilization.  He  must,  if 
he  would  please  his  critic,  ignore  all  adaptation  of 
his  code  to  the  people  who  were  to  receive  it,  and  cut  off 
all  possibility  of  future  progress.  He  must  anticipate  the 
last  results  of  Christianity  working  on  states  and  empires, 
laws  and  institutions  for  ages  ;  and  breaking  away  from 
that  course  of  training  through  which  God  was  conduct- 
ing the  world,  and  Israel  for  the  sake  of  the  world,  he 
must  produce  a  code  answering  precisely  to  the  divine 
ideal.  How  the  contemplation  of  the  geologic  eras  must 
horrify  the  censor  of  Moses,  when  those  monsters  now 
imprisoned  in  the  rocky  strata  were  suffered  to  range 
through  the  earth  and  prey  upon  each  other  and  other 
hapless  animals!  How  could  "the  great  and  blessed 
God,  the  merciful  Father,"  have  tolerated  such  an  imper- 
fect state  of  being  for  such  long  ages  ?  How  could  he 
abide  these  gradual  evolutions  through  successive  stages, 


28  PRELIlVnNARY   REMARKS. 

when  he  might  have  sprung  at  once  to  the  completed 
result? 

In  the  judgment  of  Moses,  in  which,  perhaps,  he  is  so 
unfortunate  as  to  differ  from  the  Bishop,  the  holding  of 
slaves,  as  regulated  and  limited  by  him,  was  not  in  itself 
a  sinful  thing.  The  relation,  limited  to  seven  years  in 
the  case  of  Hebrews,  unlimited  in  its  term  in  the  case  of 
others,  but  fenced  about  by  humane  regulations  and  by 
the  general  principles  of  morality  and  responsibility  to 
Grod  inculcated  in  the  Pentateuch,  might  be  suffered  to 
exist  along  with  other  hardships  incident  to  the  imper- 
fect condition  of  man.  He  might  better  leave  it  to  the 
force  of  religious  principles  and  advancing  light  gradually 
to  do  it  away,  than  attempt  to  extirpate  it  forcibly  from 
a  society  not  yet  prepared  for  it.  The  Bishop,  doubtless, 
since  he  left  off  his  advocacy  of  polygamy  for  the  Zulus, 
has  educated  himself  to  such  a  lofty  pitch  of  morality, 
that  all  these  explanations  will  be  thrown  away  upon 
him.  Slavery  is  an  evil.  Moses  undertook  to  regulate 
slaver}^,  and  implant  in  men's  hearts  the  principles  which 
would  ultimately  do  it  away,  instead  of  violently  eradi- 
cating it  while  the  hankering  after  it,  and  the  state  of 
things  which  produced  it,  still  remained.  This  revolts 
the  souls  of  intelligent  Zulus,  and  the  Lord  Bishop  of 
Natal  cannot  abide  it. 

But  all  these  points  are  not  the  points  on  which  our 
author  relies.  He  goes  on  to  swell  the  array  of  other 
possible  arguments  beside  these,  and  teaches  us  still  fur- 
ther to  admire  his  moderation  by  promising,  (p.  56,)  to 
"  omit  for  the  present  a  number  of  plain,  but  less  obvious, 
indications"  of  the  falsity  of  the  Pentateuch.  And  how 
judiciously  he  acts  in  these  omissions,  we  learn  from  the 
reason  he  assigns  for  so  doing — "because  it  may  be  pos- 


PRELIMINARY   REMARKS.  29 

sible,  in  some,  at  least,  of  sucli  cases,  to  explain  tlie  mean- 
ing of  the  Scripture  words  in  some  way,  so  as  to  make 
them  agree  with  known  facts,  or  with  statements  seem- 
ingly contradictory,  which  are  made  elsewhere." 

The  Bishop,  therefore,  like  a  prudent  reasoner,  is  not 
going  to  waste  his  strength  in  marshalling  difficulties 
which  he  sees  beforehand  can  be  explained.  It  is  the 
invulnerable  iron-clads  which  are  to  attack  the  fort. 

"  I  shall  now  proceed  to  show,"  he  undauntedly  pro- 
claims, as  he  advances  to  the  real  assault  (p.  60),  "  by 
means  of  a  number  of  prominent  instances  that  the  books 
of  the  Pentateuch  contain  in  their  own  account  of  the 
story  which  they  profess  to  relate  such  remarkable  con- 
tradictions and  involve  such  plain  impossibilities,  that 
they  cannot  be  regarded  as  true  narratives  of  actual,  his- 
torical, matters  of  fact."  And  this,  though  (p.  55)  "  it 
still  remains  an  integral  portion  of  that  book  which  has 
been  the  means  of  revealing  to  us  the  name  of  the  only 
living  and  true  God,  and  has  all  along  been  and,  as  far 
as  we  know,  will  never  cease  to  be  the  mightiest  instru- 
ment in  the  hand  of  the  Divine  Teacher,  for  awakening 
in  our  minds  just  conceptions  of  His  character,  and  of 
His  gracious  and  merciful  dealings  with  the  children  of 
men."  Can  any  contradiction  be  produced  from  the 
Pentateuch  comparable  to  that  contained  in  the  para- 
graphs just  cited  ? 


Note  to  page  24. — Tc  prevent  the  possibility  of  misconception,  it  may- 
be well  to  state  that  in  '  a  whole  day  '  of  twelve  hours  during  which  the 
sun  stood  still,  Josh.  x.  13,  the  moon's  motion  in  its  orbit  would  have  car- 
ried it  backward  6°  or  7°,  while  its  usual  apparent  motion  forward  in  the 
same  time  is  180°- 1^  —  \1^^.  On  the  supposition  of  the  stoppage  of  the 
earth's  rotation,  therefore,  the  moon  would  be  '  stayed '  in  its  dmrnal 
course  in  tlie  heav.-^ns,  only  an  inconsiderable  and  to  ordinary  observers 
an  inappreciable  motion  remaining,  and  that  in  a  retrograde  direction. 


CHAPTER  I. 


THE   FAMILY   OF  JUDAH. 


The  first  difficulty  alleged  with  this  flourish  of  trum- 
pets concerns  the  number  of  Jacob's  familj^  when  he 
went  down  into  Egypt. 

Genesis  xlvi.  8-27  contains  a  list  of  "the  names  of 
the  children  of  Israel  which  came  into  Egypt."  These 
are  arranged  in  the  order  of  their  mothers,  and  the 
descendants  of  each  are  summed  up  separately.  The 
number  here  recorded  as  sprung  from  Leah  is  reckoned 
(ver.  15)  thirty  and  three;  from  Zilpah  (ver.  18)  six- 
teen ;  from  Rachel  (ver.  22),  including  Joseph  and  his 
two  sons,  fourteen ;  from  Bilhah  (ver.  25)  seven.  A 
general  summary  is  then  made  at  the  close,  vs.  26,  27. 

"  All  the  souls  that  came  with  Jacob  into  Egypt,  which 
came  out  of  his  loins,  besides  Jacob's  sons'  wives,  all  the 
souls  were  threescore  and  six  : 

"  And  the  sons  of  Joseph  which  were  born  him  in 
Egypt,  were  two  souls :  all  the  souls  of  the  house  of 
Jacob,  which  came  into  Egypt,  were  three  score  and 
ten." 

Now  the  point  which  Colenso  makes  is  this.  There 
are  two  persons  named  in  this  list,  and  who  must  be 
included  to  make  up  the  number,  but  who  could  not 


THE    FAMILY    OF    JUDAH.  31 

have  been  born  when  Jacob  went  down  into  Egypt  nor 
for  a  considerable  time  afterwards.  The  names  in  ques- 
tion occur  in  ver.  12  : 

"  And  the  sons  of  Judah  ;  Er,  and  Onan,  and  Shelah, 
and  Pharez  and  Zarah ;  but  Er  and  Onan  died  in  the 
land  of  Canaan.  And  the  sons  of  Pharez  were  Hezron 
and  Hamul." 

Now  if  Er  and  Onan  who  '  died  in  the  land  of  Canaan' 
be  dropped  from  the  list,  it  will  be  necessary  to  include 
in  the  enumeration  Hezron  and  Hamul  the  sons  of 
Pharez,  or  there  will  be  a  deficiency  in  the  descendants 
of  Leah,  as  well  as  in  the  total  number  of  the  descend- 
ants of  Jacob.  But  that  Hezron  and  Hamul  could  not 
have  been  born  prior  to  the  descent  into  Egypt  he  under- 
takes to  show  in  the  following  manner  : 

"  Now  Judah  was  forty-two^  years  old,  according  to  the  story,  when  he 
went  down  with  Jacob  into  Egypt. 

"  But,  if  we  turn  to  G-.  xxxviii.  we  shall  find  that,  in  the  course  of  these 
forty-two  years  of  Judah's  life,  the  following  events  are  recorded  to  have 
happened. 

"(i)  Judah  grows  up,  marries  a  wife — '  at  that  time,'  v.  1,  that  is,  after 
Joseph's  being  sold  into  Egypt,  when  he  was  'seventeen  years  old,' 
G.  xxxvii.  2,  and  when  Judah,  consequently,  was  iioeniy  years  old, — and 
has,  separately,  three  sons  by  her. 

"  (ii)  The  eldest  of  these  three  sons  grows  up,  is  married,  and  dies. 

"  The  second  grows  to  maturity  (suppose  in  another  year),  marries  h'A 
brother's  widow,  and  dies. 

'•  *  Joseph  was  thirty  years  old,  when  he  '  stood  before  Pharaoh,'  as 
governor  of  the  land  of  Egypt,  G-.  xli.  46  ;  and  from  that  time  nine  years 
elapsed,  (seven  of  plenty  and  two  of  famine,)  before  Jacob  came  down  to 
Egypt.  At  that  time,  therefore,  Joseph  was  thirty-nine  years  old.  But 
Judah  was  about  three  years  older  than  Joseph ;  for  Judah  was  born  in 
the  fourth  year  of  Jacob's  double  marriage,  G-.  xxix.  35,  and  Joseph  in  the 
seventh,  G.  xxx.  24-26,  xxxi.  41.  Hence  Judah  was  forty-two  years  old 
when  Jacob  went  down  to  Egypt." 


diS  THE   FAMILY   OF  JUDAH. 

"  The  third  grows  to  maturity  (suppose  in  another  year  still),  but 
declines  to  take  his  brother's  widow  to  wife. 

"  She  then  deceives  Judah  himself,  conceives  by  him,  and  in  due  time 
bears  him  twins,  Pharez  and  Zarah. 

•'(iii)  One  of  these  twins  also  grows  to  maturity,  and  has  two  sous, 
Hezron  and  Hamul,  born  to  him,  before  Jacob  goes  down  into  Egypt. 

"  The  above  being  certainly  incredible,  we  are  obliged  to  conclude  that 
one  of  the  two  accounts  must  be  untrue."    (pp.  61,  63  ) 

We  cheerfully  grant  the  Bishop  his  premises,  but  can- 
not agree  with  him  in  his  conclusion.  We  would  not 
be  prepared  to  admit  that  any  writer  of  ordinary  sense 
could  so  stultify  himself,  as  he  here  alleges  that  Moses 
has  done ;  not,  at  least,  until  we  had  first  exhausted 
every  effort  for  the  reconciliation  of  his  statements.  We 
can,  therefore,  but  repeat  the  explanation  which  has 
satisfied  a  multitude  of  candid  and  intelligent  minds  from 
the  beginning  and  which  satisfies  our  own,  notwith- 
standing the  sneer  at  those  who  have  adduced  it  as  will- 
ing to  '  do  violence  to  the  plain  reading  of  the  Scripture 
in  order  to  evade  the  difficulty,'  and  as  '  having  recourse 
to  shifts  in  order  to  avoid  confessinsf  the  manifest  truth 

D 

in  this  matter.' 

The  sacred  writer  evidently  desires  to  make  out  the 
round  number  seventy  (ver.  27)  as  the  total  of  Jacob's 
family  when  he  went  into  Egypt.  In  order  to  arrive  at 
this  result  he  allows  himself  a  certain  latitude  of  expres- 
sion, which  those,  who  are  disposed  to  carp  at  words, 
may  charge  upon  him  as  verbal  inaccuracies,  though  he 
makes  his  meaning  sufficiently  plain,  and  no  one  but  a 
caviller  is  in  any  danger  of  being  deceived  by  it.  Thus 
in  ver.  8  Jacob  is  himself  included,  as  well  as  his  sons, 
among  "  the  children  of  Israel  which  came  into  Egypt." 
He  is  also  counted  alonD-  with  "  his  sons  and  his  dauoh- 
ters"  by  Leah  to  complete  the  number  thirty-three  (ver. 


THE   FAillLY   OF   JUDAH.  33 

15).  And  in  ver.  27  "  the  sons  of  Joseph  which  ivere  horn 
him  in  Egyiit^'"'  are  included  among  ''  the  souls  of  the 
house  of  Jacob  ivhicJi  came  into  EgypV  It  is  plain, 
therefore,  that  the  narrator  was  more  concerned  about 
the  substantial  truth  of  his  statements  than  about  punc- 
tilious precision  in  regard  to  phrases. 

Now,  including  Er  and  Onan,  the  two  who  had 
deceased  in  Canaan,  the  family  of  Jacob,  up  to  the  time 
of  his  entering  Egypt,  amounted  to  seventy  souls.  Or 
again,  if  these  two  names  be  omitted,  and  the  vacancy  so 
created  be  filled  up  by  two  descendants  of  the  same 
branch  of  the  family  born  in  Egypt,  viz.  Hezron  and 
Hamul,  the  number  will  again  be  seventy.  It  no  more 
conflicts  with  the  good  faith  of  this  family  register  that  it 
admits  two  grandsons  of  Judah  born  in  Egypt,  than  that 
it  admits  the  two  sons  of  Joseph  also  born  in  Egypt,  and 
then  sums  all  up  as  "  the  souls  of  the  house  of  Jacob 
which  came  into  Egypt."  The  grandsons  of  Judah  came 
into  Egypt  in  precisely  the  same  sense  that  the  sons 
of  Joseph  came^  viz.  in  the  loins  of  their  father,  Heb. 
vii.  10  ;  and  in  a  sense  kindred  to  that  in  which  God 
brought  Jacob  up  again  from  Egypt  Gen.  xlvi.  4,  i.  e. 
in  the  persons  of  his  descendants. 

But  why,  urges  Colenso,  are  not 

"the  children  of  Reuben's  sons,  and  Simeon's,  and  Levi's,  &e.,  all  named 
and  counted  in  like  manner,  as  being  in  their  father  though  not  yet  born  ?" 
"  "Why  not  also  the  great-great-grandsons,  and  so  on  ad  infinitum  ?"  And 
"  why  does  the  sacred  writer  draw  any  contrast  between  the  three  score 
and  ten  persons  who  ivent  down  into  Egypt,  and  the  multitude  as  the  stars 
of  heaven  who  came  out,  since  these  last  as  well  as  the  former  were  all  in 
the  loins  of  their  father  Jacob  ?"     See  Deut.  x.  22. 

The  reason,  doubtless,  is  because  Judah  adopted  his 
grandsons  Ilezron   and  Hamul  in  place  of  his  deceased 


34  THE   FAMILY    OF   JUDAH. 

sons  Er  and  Onan :  just  as  Jacob  adopted  Joseph's  two 
sons  to  be  his  own,  Gen.  xlviii.  5,  6,  for  the  sake  of 
giving  him  the  double  portion  among  his  children  wdiich 
was  his  birthright,  1  Chron.  v.  1,  2,  at  the  same  time 
declaring  that  this  adoption  did  not  go  beyond  these 
two.  That  Hezron  and  Hamul  were  thus  adopted  by 
Judah  is  not  indeed  declared  in  so  many  words,  for  the 
sacred  history  makes  no  further  mention  of  them ;  and, 
of  course,  the  idea  would  be  scouted  by  Colenso,  et  id 
genus  omne.  But  we  feel  warranted  in  inferring  it,  first, 
from  the  appearance  of  their  names  in  this  register, 
where  they  plainly  stand  as  substitutes  for  Er  and  Onan. 
Secondly,  from  Num.  xxvi.  19,  where,  in  an  enumera- 
tion of  the  Israelitish  families  existing  at  the  time  of  the 
exodus,  Er  and  Onan  are  alone  mentioned  of  all  the 
descendants  of  Jacob  from  whom  flimilies  did  not  spring. 
There  must,  therefore,  have  been  some  special  reason 
why  they,  in  particular,  are  named,  w^hen  other  grand- 
children who  died  without  issue  are  omitted.  Now, 
what  more  probable  reason  can  be  suggested  than  that 
they  were  regarded  as  perpetuated  in  the  descendants  of 
their  two  nephews,  adopted  in  their  stead?  Thirdly, 
from  Num.  xxvi.  21,  where  it  appears  that  Hezron  and 
Hamul  gave  rise  to  families  in  Israel  distinct  from  the 
family  of  Pharez,  their  father.  But,  as  appears  from  a 
comparison  of  Num.  xxvi.  with  the  register  before  us, 
the  honour  of  originating  permanent  families  in  Israel 
w^as  confined  to  those  descendants  of  Jacob  who  wxre 
living  at  the  time  of  his  going  down  into  Egypt.  The 
only  exceptions  are,  first,  Manasseh  and  Ephraim,  who 
were  raised  from  the  rank  of  families  to  the  dignity  of 
tribes  ;  the  families  or  subdivisions  of  these  tribes  must, 
therefore,   of  necessity,  be  drawn  from  amongst  their 


THE    FAMILY    OF    JUDAH.  35 

offspring  who  were  not  yet  born  ;  and,  secondly,  Hezron 
and  Hamul  *  And  how  do  Hezron  and  Hamul,  though 
born  in  Egypt,  come  to  be  the  heads  of  distinct  families 
or  tribal  subdivisions,  contrary  to  the  universal  analogy 
of  Jacob's  other  descendants?  What  answer  can  be 
given,  or  what  answer  need  be  given,  except  that  they 
were,  by  Judah's  adoption,  substituted  for  Er  and  Onan, 
and  thus  succeeded  to  the  rights  which  the  latter  would 
have  possessed  but  for  their  untimely  death  ?f 

''But,"  continues  the  pupil  and  admirer  of  the  Zulus 
(p.  69),  "  if  Hezron  and  Hamul  are  substituted  for  Er 
and  Onan,  for  whom  are  Heber  and  Malchiel,  the  sons 

*  It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  remark  that  the  tribe  of  Levi  formed  no 
real  exception.  There  were  but  three  leading  families  in  this  tribe,  and 
these  were  named  after  the  three  sons  of  Levi,  from  whom  they  were  res- 
pectively descended,  Nura,  xxvi.  57.  The  families  spoken  of  in  ver.  58, 
the  Libnites,  Hebronites,  Mahlites,  etc.,  are  not  distinct  from  and  co-ordi- 
nate with  the  preceding,  but,  as  appears  from  Num.  iii.  21,  27,  33,  they 
were  subdivisions  of  the  proper  tribal  families,  necessitated  by  the  distri- 
bution of  ministerial  functions  in  this  sacerdotal  tribe,  and  its  separation 
into  different  encampments. 

f  An  illustration  of  Coleuso's  carelessness  in  argument,  or  ignorance  of 
Hebrew,  or  both,  which  is  very  fine  in  its  way,  is  afforded  on  page  68. 
Kurtz  argues  from  Gen.  xlvi.  5,  where  the  household  of  Jacob  is  spoken 
of  as  comprising  himself,  his  sons,  their  little  ones  and  their  wives,  that,  in 
the  view  of  the  writer,  Jacob's  grandsons  were  still  young  and  had  no 
children  of  their  own.  Our  author  replies  with  a  triumphant  air  to  this 
"  feeble  argument,'*  that  Benjamin  is  called  a  little  one,  Gen.  xliv.  20,  at 
a  time  when  he  "  had  actually  ten  sons  of  his  own,"  Gen.  xlvi.  21.  He 
never  seems,  in  his  innocence,  to  suspect  that  the  original  term  is  totally 
distinct  in  the  two  cases.  In  one  it  is  C]l3  which  Gesenius  defines  to 
mean  parvuli,  as  opposed  to  young  men  and  maidens,  Ezek.  ix.  6,  as 
well  as  to  adults,  Ex.  xii.  37  ;  in  the  other  it  is  "^t^J^^  which  means  not 
only  small  in  respect  of  size,  but  minimus  natu,  and  is  applied  to  Benja- 
min as  the  youngest  of  Jacob's  sons.  We  are  strongly  inclined  to  suspect 
that  he  only  saw  Kurtz  through  the  medium  of  a  translation,  as  it  is  the 
English  form  of  expression  which  betrayed  him  into  the  blunder. 


36  THE   FAMILY    OF   JUDAH. 

of  Beriah,  Asher's  son,  ver.  17,  supposed  to  be  substi- 
tuted?" 

We  really  cannot  answer  this.  We  are  not  aware 
that  they  are  "  supposed  to  be  substituted  "  for  anybody. 
If  the  bishop  thinks  they  are,  and  will  give  reasons  for 
his  opinion  equal  or  comparable  to  those  which  have 
been  alleged  in  the  preceding  instance,  we  are  open  to 
conviction.  Till  then  we  will  abide  by  our  present  belief, 
that  Heber  and  Malchiel  were  born  before  the  descent 
into  Egypt,  and  are  named  in  the  register  for  that  reason. 

Here  we  might  rest  the  case.  The  objections  made  to 
the  truthfulness  of  this  family  register  demand  nothing 
more  than  has  now  been  said  for  their  refutation.  But 
before  dismissing  the  matter,  we  desire  to  show  more 
fully  the  impregnability  of  this  portion  of  the  sacred 
record,  and  the  futility  of  the  attacks  made  upon  it. 

The  list  given  us  in  ISTum.  xxvi.  of  the  tribal  fami- 
lies, as  they  existed  in  the  days  of  Moses,  affords  irrefra- 
gable evidence  of  the  correctness  and  the  antiquity  of 
Jacob's  family  register,  in  Gen.  xlvi. ;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  this  latter  renders  unimpeachable  testimony 
to  the  truth  of  the  former.  We  have  here,  in  fact,  two 
witnesses,  demonstrably  independent,  and  yet  perfectly 
corroborating  each  other.  The  differences  between  them 
are  of  such  a  nature  that  one  cannot  have  been  taken 
from  the  other,  nor  both  from  a  common  source,  nor  can 
both  have  proceeded  from  the  same  hand,  least  of  all  the 
hand  of  a  forger,  Vv^ho  would  not  have  convicted  himself 
by  the  admission  of  such  apparent  discrepancies.  ISTor 
can  this  document,  purporting  to  be  Jacob's  family  regis- 
ter, be  the  product  of  a  later  period,  made  out  on  the 
basis  of  the  tribal  families  existing  when  it  ^vas  pre- 
pared, by  concluding  back  from  these  to  assumed  proge- 


THE   FAMILY    OF   JUDAH.  37 

nitors,  and  hence  to  be  regarded  as  an  a  x>osienori  con- 
struction instead  of  a  bond  fide  historical  narrative.  For, 
not  to  insist  upon  the  difficulty  with  which  such  a  theory 
would  be  pressed,  arising  out  of  what  may  be  styled  the 
irregular  construction  of  this  ancient  register,  making  all 
the  names  in  some  families  sons,  in  others  adding  a 
daughter,  in  others  still  grandsons,  in  which  it  is  true 
to  the  life  if  it  records  fi?,cts,  but  unaccountable  if  it  be 
the  theoretical  deduction  of  a  later  age ; — not  to  insist 
upon  this,  how  is  it  to  be  explained,  in  the  first  place, 
that  several  names  are  found  in  this  register  to  which, 
as  appears  from  Kum.  xxvi.,  there  were  no  families 
subsequently  corresponding?  There  is.  Gen.  xlvi.  10, 
Ohad,  son  of  Simeon ;  ver.  17,  Ishuah  and  his  sister 
Serah,  children  of  Asher ;  ver.  21,  Becher,  Gera,  and 
Eosh,  sons  of  Benjamin,  from  whom  no  families  seem  to 
have  sprung.  They  must,  therefore,  either  have  died 
without  issue,  or  their  descendants  were  too  few  to  con- 
stitute a  separate  family,  and  were  accordingly  reckoned 
as  belonging  to  one  of  their  brothers'  houses,  agreeably 
to  the  principle  set  forth  in  1  Chron.  xxiii.  11.  In 
either  case  their  names  were  of  no  permanent  national 
consequence,  there  being  no  representative  families  upon 
which  they  were  impressed.  How  comes  it  to  pass, 
then,  that  we  meet  names  of  this  character  in  this  regis- 
ter ?  It  is  a  sorry  shift  to  say  that  they  may  be  purely 
fictitious.  For,  apart  from  the  considerations  that  this 
is  abandoning  the  hypothesis  of  an  a  x>osteriori  construc- 
tion, and  that  it  brands  the  writer,  without  any  evidence, 
with  being  a  wilful  forger  of  what  is  false,  which  Colenso 
expressly  disclaims,*  and  which  would,  in  fact,  be  very 

*  Page  16,  note  *      "I  use  the  expression  'unhistorical,'  or  'not  his- 
torically true,'  throughout,  rather  than  'fictitious,'  since  the  word  •fiction' 


38  TUE   FAMILY   OF   JUDAH. 

inconsistent  in  him  after  the  disgust  he  expresses  at 
Hengstenberg  for  charging  his  opponents  with  dishonesty 
(p.  69) ;  the  notion  of  fictitious  genealogies  and  dry, 
unmeaning  lists  of  names  is  in  itself  sufficiently  amus- 
ing. The  writer's  imagination  or  invention  must  have 
been  given  to  very  odd  flights,  if  he  thought  to  divert 
either  himself  or  his  readers  in  this  way. 

In  the  second  place,  the  originality  of  this  register  in 
Gen.  xlvi.  and  its  independence  of  the  list  of  famiUes 
in  Num.  xxvi.  appears  still  farther  from  the  diversity 
in  their  general  construction,  and  the  order  in  which  the 
several  tribes  are  arranged  ;  and  yet  more  plainly  from 
the  diversity  in  the  names  themselves,  some  of  which 
have  undergone  considerable  alteration  in  the  long  in- 
terval between  the  periods,  which  they  respectively 
represent.  When  we  recall  the  great  changes  which  the 
names  of  many  modern  families  have  suffered  both  in 
their  orthography  and  pronunciation,  we  need  not  be 
surprised  that  the  lapse  of  centuries  brought  about  like 
results  in  Israel.  It  is,  in  fact,  just  what  ought  upon 
natural  principles  to  have  taken  place,  and  yet  wiiat  it 
would  not  have  entered  the  mind  of  a  forger  to  contrive. 
At  any  rate  the  differences  between  these  two  lists  are 
such  as  to  show  beyond  question,  that  one  is  not  derived 
from  the  other.  A  few  apparent  differences  in  the 
authorized  English  version  are  due  to  a  divergent  ortho- 
graphy adopted  by  our  translators,  where  the  forms  in 
the  original  are  coincident,  as  Phallu  and  Pallu,  son  of 
Eeuben  ;  Pliuva  and  Pua,  son  of  Issachar ;  Isui  and 
Jesui  son  of  Asher.  In  other  cases  the  diversity  belongs 
to  the  Hebrew  form  of  the  name,  as  Jemuel,  and  Z,ohar^ 

is  frequently  understood  to  imply  a  conscious  dishonesty  on  the-  p-art  of  the 
writer,  an  intmdon  to  deceive." 


THE   FAMILY   OF   JUDAH.  39 

sons  of  Simeon,  called  in  ]S"umbers  Nemuel  and  Zerah  • 
Job,  son  of  Issachar,  in  Numbers  Jashub ;  Ziphion, 
Ezbon  and  Arodi,  sons  of  Gad,  in  Numbers  Zephon, 
Ozni,  Arod ;  Ehi,  Muppim  and  Iluppim,  sons  of  Benja- 
min, in  Numbers  Ahiram,  Shupham  (Heb.  SJi'phupham) 
and  Hupham ;  Hushim,  son  of  Dan,  in  Numbers,  Shu- 
ham.  These  varying  forms  of  the  same  name  are  nearly 
enough  related  either  in  their  radicals  or  their  significa- 
tion '^'  to  account  for  the  transition,  which  occurred  in 
the  usage  of  common  life.  But  by  no  possibility  could 
one  list  have  been  taken  from  the  other,  or  the  ancestral 
names  be  factitious,  and  inferred  from  those  of  families. 
A  still  more  remarkable  difference  between  the  lists 
of  these  two  chapters,  and  one  which  tends  still  more 
strikingly  to  establish  their  independence  of  each  other, 
has  respect  to  the  sons  of  Benjamin  and  the  families 
which  sprang  from  them.  In  G-en.  xlvi.  21,  Naaman  and 
Ard  are  said  to  have  been  sons  of  Benjamin.  Num.  xxvi. 
40,  declares  that  the  families  of  the  Ardites  and  of  the 
Naamites  were  descended  from  Ard  and  Naaman,  sons 
of  Bela,  Benjamin's  eldest  son.  The  two  accounts  differ 
too  palpably  to  be  traceable  to  a  common  source.  On 
the  other  hand  there  is  no  real  disagreement  or  discre- 
pancy between  them.  The  sons  of  Benjamin  of  this 
name  died  doubtless  without  issue,  and  hence  no  families 
are  derived  from  them.  Benjamin,  therefore,  to  preserve 
the  number  of  his  sons  intact,  adopted  in  their  stead  two 
children  of  his  eldest  son,  naming  them  after  the  sons 
whom  he  had  lost.  They  thus  succeeded  to  the  rights 
of  sons  born  before  the  descent  into  Egypt,  and  each 
gave  name  to  a  separate  family.     The  two  accounts  are 

*  As  if,  to  employ  an  English  analogy,  the  name  of  a  family  was  changed 
from  Pike  to  Fifh,  or  from  Smith  to  Wright,  or  from  Coon  to  Khun. 


40  THE   FAMILY    OF   JUDAH. 

thus  perfectly  harmonious,  though  drawn  from  entirely 
independent  sources.  And  we  have  here  again  a  fresh 
instance  of  adoption  in  the  patriarchal  family,  which' 
both  corroborates  and  is  corroborated  by  the  instances 
previously  adduced.  i 

If  now,  as  has  been  shown,  the  register  of  Jacob's 
sons  in  Gen.  xlvi.,  and  the  list  of  tribal  families  in 
Num.  xxvi.  are  quite  independent  in  their  origin, 
then  the  truth  and  accuracy  of  both  are  indisputable. 
Two  such  documents  involving  such  a  number  of  parti- 
culars could  never  agree  by  chance.  If  they  are  inde- 
pendent witnesses,  and  their  witness  agrees  together, 
they  are  both  true.  Now,  with  all  the  superficial  diversi- 
ties, which  have  been  already  exhibited,  these  lists  do  in 
fact  upon  a  narrow  inspection  tally  throughout.  For 
every  family  set  down  in  Numbers,  a  corresponding 
name  is  recorded  in  Genesis.  These  uniformly  succeed 
each  other  in  the  like  ordfer,  with  the  single  exception  of 
the  descendants  of  Benjamin,  and  that  for  a  reason  which 
has  just  been  explained.  Furthermore,  the  names  are, 
in  a  vast  majority  of  cases,  precisely  identical ;  and  where 
they  are  not,  the  evidence  is  but  strengtiiened  by  the 
appearance  of  such  changes  as  lapse  of  time,  constant 
usage,  and  perhaps  family  caprice  would  be  apt  to  intro- 
duce. With  its  genuineness  and  reliability  certified  by 
such  tests  as  these,  the  register  of  Jacob's  sons  can  with- 
stand the  attacks  of  a  hundred  Colensos.  What  does  all 
his  paltry  pecking  at  it  amount  to,  beside  such  evidences 
in  its  favour?  In  a  like  case  affecting  the  validity  of  a 
legal  document,  would  the  jury  have  to  leave  the  court- 
room before  making  up  their  minds  to  a  unanimous 
verdict  ? 

It  is  apparent  that  the  number  of  persons  composing  a 


THE   FAMILY   OF   JUDAIT.  41 

family  may  be  stated  variously,  and  yet  each  statement 
be  entirely  correct.  Everything  depends  upon  the  prin- 
ciple of  enumeration.  The  parents  may  be  included  or 
omitted.  The  children  of  both  sexes  may  be  reckoned, 
or  only  those  of  one.  The  statement  may  embrace 
those  only  who  are  living,  or  at  home  at  the  time ;  or  it 
may  extend  likewise  to  the  absent  and  the  departed.  It 
may  cover  the  first  generation  only,  or  all  the  descen- 
dants. A  certain  measure  of  liberty  was  possessed 
accordingly  by  the  author  of  Jacob's  family  register, 
without  departing  from  truth  or  becoming  inexact. 
Omitting  Jacob  the  number  would  be  sixty-nine ;  omit- 
ting Joseph  and  his  household,  who  were  in  Egypt 
alread}^,  it  would  be  sixty-six ;  omitting  the  two  that 
were  deceased,  or  their  substitutes  subsequently  born,  it 
would  be  sixty -four ;  omitting  the  daughter,  ver.  15,  and 
grand-daughter,  ver.  17,  it  would  be  sixty- two  ;  and,  on 
the  other  hand,  including  all  these  and  in  addition 
"  Jacob's  sons'  wives,"  ver.  26,  the  number  would  have 
been  at  least  eighty-two,  and  perhaps  more.  Inasmuch 
as  one  of  these  modes  of  enumeration  was  just  as  correct 
as  another,  it  was  within  the  discretion  of  the  writer  to 
select  whichever  he  might  prefer.  He  chose  the  enu- 
meration which  he  has  given  us,  and  which  yields  as  its 
total  the  number  seventy.  And  there  can  be  little  doubt 
that  he  was  influenced  in  his  selection,  in  part  at  least, 
by  the  desire  to  produce  that  number. 

A  round  number  and  a  familiar  number  is  always  pre- 
ferred to  another,  if  nothing  is  sacrificed  by  it.  This  is 
manifest  in  indefinite  numbers  where  precision  is  of  no 
consequence,  or  is  not  pretended  to.  We  speak  of  ten 
or  a  dozen,  of  fifty  or  a  hundred.  And  we  observe  that 
even  Colenso  (p.  90)  is  guilty  of  calling  the  old  Greek 


42  THE   FAMILY   OF  JUDAH. 

version,  which  according  to  tradition  was  made  by 
seventy-two  interpreters,  the  LXX. 

It  is  particularly  the  case  if  a  number  has  been  fixed  by 
usage  or  hallowed  by  association.  We  never  speak  of 
thirteen  apostles,  or  of  fourteen,  but  only  of  twelve. 
Does  this  warrant  the  inference  that  we  never  heard  of 
the  election  of  Matthias  or  the  appointment  of  Paul  ? 
And  we  never  hear  of  the  thirteen  tribes  of  Israel  but 
only  of  the  twelve ;  so  that  the  inspired  author  of  the 
book  of  Revelation  vii.  4-8,  though  professedly  speaking 
of  "  all  the  tribes  of  the  children  of  Israel,"  omits  one  to 
preserve  the  familiar  number.  Perhaps,  if  an  "intelli- 
gent "  Zulu  were  to  question  his  Bishop  aboiit  this,  he 
might  be  told  that  the  writer  was  clearly  ignorant  of  the 
existence  of  the  tribe  of  Dan.  And  if  the  same  Zulu 
were  helping  him  "  translate  "  1  Kings  xi.  35,  36,  he 
might  come  to  the  conclusion  that  in  the  arithmetic  of 
the  Jews  ten  and  one  make  twelve.  The  sacrcdness  of  a 
past  association  evidently  controlled  the  language  of 
Joseph's  brethren,  in  saying  (Gen.  xlii.  32),  "  We  be 
twelve  brethren,"  although  one  was  not.  A  like  affec- 
tion for  a  number  similarly  hallowed  may  hav^e  led  the 
patriarch  to  fill  up  his  flimily  to  its  ancient  dimensions 
by  adopting  two  born  in  Eg3'pt  in  the  stead  of  the  two 
who  had  died  in  Canaan  ;  and  hence  that  feature  of  the 
register  at  which  Colenso  so  needlessly  cavils.* 

An  additional  motive  for  the  preference  of  a  particular 
number  may  lie  in  some  relation  of  correspondence 
which  it  suggests.  Thus  Elijah,  in  building  an  altar 
in  the  presence  of  a  schismatical  and  apostate  people, 
constructed    it    of    "twelve    stones,    according    to    the 

*  A  modern  parallel,  as  suggested  by  Prof.  Maban,  may  be  found  in 
"Wordsworth's  ballad,  We  are  Seven. 


TBGE   FAMILY   OF   JIJDAH.  43 

number  of  the  tribes  of  tbe  sons  of  Jacob,"  1  Kings 
xviii.  81.  The  sentence  of  wandering  in  the  wilderness 
fixes  its  duration  by  the  time  that  the  spies,  whose  false 
report  occasioned  it,  were  searching  the  promised  land, 
Num.  xiv.  33,  34.  Daniel  (ix.  24),  sighing  for  the 
restoration  of  Israel  at  the  end  of  seventy  years'  cap- 
tivity, is  informed  that  seven  times  seventy  years  must 
intervene  before  the  coming  of  the  great  Restorer.  Mat- 
thew omits  a  few  unimportant  names  from  the  genealogy 
of  Christ,  in  order  so  to  adjust  its  three  great  periods  as 
to  exhibit  fourteen  generations  in  each.  Matt.  i.  17.  Such 
correspondences,  which  are  frequent  in  the  Scriptures 
generally,  especially  abound  in  the  ritual,  where  all  is 
significant  and  full  of  mystical  allusions.  As  a  single 
example,  witness  the  cycle  of  sevens  in  the  sacred 
periods,  from  the  weekly  Sabbath  through  the  seventh 
month  with  its  day  of  atonement  and  the  seventh  year  to 
the  highest  of  all,  the  year  of  jubilee.  Lev.  xxv.  8,  9, 
each  in  its  various  grade  at  once  a  commemoration  and 
a  prefiguration  of  that  rest  of  God,  with  which  the  num- 
ber seven  was  associated  (Gen.  ii.  3),  and  into  which  it 
is  man's  privilege  and  destiny  to  enter,  Heb.  iv.  3-5. 

Now,  at  a  time  when  instruction  was  so  largely  con- 
veyed by  mysterious  hints  in  figures  and  symbols,  it  need 
not  surprise  us  to  find  the  suggestion  of  a  momentous 
truth  in  the  number  of  Jacob's  family  at  this  great  crisis 
in  their  history.  Nor  need  we  be  surprised  that  such  a 
mode  of  enumeration  was  selected  as  might  suggest  a 
truth  which  was  to  be  inculcated.  That  this  is  not 
purely  fanciful,  appears  from  Moses'  directing  the  atten- 
tion of  the  people  expressly  to  it,  Deut.  xxxii.  8,  '  When 
the  Most  High  divided  to  the  nations  their  inheritance, 
when  he  separated  the  sons  of  Adam,  he  set  the  bounds 


44  THE  FAMILY   OF  JUDAH. 

of  the  people  (Heb.  jpeojAes)  according  to  the  number  of 
the  children  of  Israel.'  There  was,  therefore,  a  significant 
relati(^i  between  '  the  number  of  the  children  of  Israel ' 
and  the  nations  of  mankind.  The  tenth  chapter  of  Gene- 
sis, which  gives  an  account  of  the  sons  of  Koah  and  their 
dispersion  over  the  world,  makes  the  number  to  be 
seventy.  With  this  the  number  of  Jacob's  family  at  the 
time  when  it  was  about  to  pass  into  a  nation,  when  it 
was  about  to  receive  its  permanent  organization  and  its 
tribal  divisions  to  be  determined,  precisely  corresponded. 
The  universal  aim  of  Israel,  its  world-wide  relations, 
which  were  in  so  many  ways  explicitly  set  forth,  are 
here  impressed  upon  its  origin  in  a  numerical  symbol. 
That  this  number  was  regarded  as  not  wholly  casual 
but  significant,  and  that  its  significance  was  kept  in  mind, 
appears  still  further  from  '  the  seventy  elders  of  Israel,' 
of  whom  we  repeatedly  read,  Ex.  xxiv.  1,  Num.  xi. 
16-25,  Ezek.  viii.  11,  a  body  perpetuated  in  the  Sanhe- 
drim."^    As  seventy  is  not  a  multiple  of  twelve,  it  could 

*  This  number  continued  to  be  so  understood  by  the  later  Jews,  as  appears 
from  numerous  passages  in  their  writings.  The  following  from  the  book 
of  Zohar,  quoted  by  Lightfoot,  Heb.  Exercit.  on  Luke  iii.  36,  may  serve  as 
a  specimen.  "  Seventy  souls  went  down  with  Jacob  into  Egypt,  that  they 
might  restore  the  seventy  families  dispersed  by  the  confusion  of  tongues." 

The  prevalence  of  this  opinion  further  appears  from  the  systematic 
alterations  made  in  the  Septuagint  both  in  Gen.  x.  and  Gen.  xlvi. 
The  seventy  nations  in  the  common  text  are  distributed  among  the  sons 
of  Noah  in  the  following  manner,  viz.  Japheth  14,  Ham  30,  Shem  26. 
The  account  of  Nimrod  (vs.  8-12)  is  a  manifest  parenthesis  relating  to  a 
monarch  and  conqueror  and  not  the  progenitor  of  a  nation.  Accordingly, 
his  name  and  that  of  Asshur  are  not  reckoned.  If,  however,  these  names 
be  counted,  the  correspondence  with  Jacob's  family  will  be  destroyed. 
In  order  to  restore  this  correspondence,  while  including  these  names,  the 
Greek  translators  took  the  liberty  of  inserting  three  additional  names  in 
the  list  of  Noah's  descendants,  viz.   Elisa  in  ver.  2,  and  two  Cainans,  vs. 


THE    FAMILY  OF   JUDAH.  45 

not  have  been  determined  by  the  number  of  the  tribes, 
but  must  be  traced  to  some  other  source. 

When  our  Lord  was  about  organizing  the  true  Israel, 
who  believed  in  and  embraced  him,  he  retained  at  the 
outset  these  numerical  correspondences.  He  ordained 
twelve  apostles,  preserving  herein  the  number  of  the 
tribes,  and  intimating  that  Israel  is  perpetuated  in  its  full 
organization  in  spite  of  the  excision  of  its  apostate  mem- 
bers. He  sent  forth  seventy  disciples,  preserving  thus 
the  universal  feature  of  Israel,  and  that  which  looked  to 
the  subjugation  of  all  nations.  But  when  the  new  Jeru- 
salem is  complete  Eev.  xxi.  12  etc.,  the  twelve  dominates 
and  the  seventy  disappears.  The  seed  of  Abraham  has 
then  swollen  to  its  utmost  expansion,  and  is  commensu- 
rate with  the  whole  body  of  the  redeemed.  The  nations 
of  the  world  have  been  absorbed  into  the  tribes  of  Israel. 
The  holy  city  bears  the  names  of  the  tribes  upon  its  gates, 
indicating  who  alone  have  the  right  of  admission  within 
its  walls.  And  thus  Abraham  is  the  father  of  many 
nations,  Rom.  iv.  17,  and  the  heir  of  the  world,  verse  13. 
And  the  ultimate  completion  of  the  promise  Gen,  xvii.  4, 
^'  unto  thy  seed  will  I  give  this  land"  is  something  far 
more  glorious  than  the  peopling  of  Canaan  to  its  full 
dimensions  with  his  lineal  descendants.  It  is  not  without 
a  meaning  that  the  same  word  in  Hebrew  and  in  Greek 
signifies  both  land  and  earth.  So  that  the  divine  grant 
in  its  largest  sense  really  is  "to  thy  spiritual  seed  will  I 

22,  24 ;  the  total  thus  becomes  seventy-five.  And  then  in  the  summa- 
tion of  the  house  of  Jacob  (Gen.  xlvi.  27)  they  substitute  seventy-five  for 
seventy,  making  up  the  number  by  tracing  the  descendants  of  Joseph 
beyond  the  first  generation.  Stephen  retains  this  number  in  his  speech 
(Acts  vii.  14)  as  the  one  most  familiar  to  Greek-speaking  Jews,  and  as 
sufficiently  accurate  for  his  immediate  purpose,  being  in  fact  strictly  cor- 
rect upon  tlie  mode  of  enumeration  adopted  by  the  Ixx  translators. 


4:6  THE   FAMILY    OF   JUDAH. 

give  tliis  earth."  All  this  is  darkly  hinted,  nay,  is  ger- 
minally  involved  in  this  original  register  of  Israel.  The 
miserable  quibbles,  which  we  have  been  refuting, 
uttered  without  an  inkling  of  its  real  significance,  cannot 
disturb  its  truth,  its  certainty,  or  the  fulness  of  its 
import. 


CHAPTER  11. 

THE  SIZE  OF  THE  COUKT  OF  THE  TABERNACLE,  COM- 
PARED WITH  THE  NUMBER  OF  THE  CONGREGATION. 

The  second  objection  of  our  autlior  is  so  peculiarly 
Colensonian,  that  we  are  quite  willing,  as  far  as  it  is  con- 
cerned, to  accept  his  disclaimer  (p.  13),  that  he  has  not 
borrowed  from  De  Wette  in  particular  or  the  German 
Rationalists  in  general.  He  finds  a  difficulty,  it  seems, 
in  Lev.  viii.  1-4. 

"  And  the  Lord  spake  unto  Moses,  saying 

Gather  thou  all  the  congregation  together  unto  the 
door  of  the  tabernacle  of  the  congregation.  And  Moses 
did  as  the  Lord  commanded  him  ;  and  the  assembly  was 
gathered  together  unto  the  door  of  the  tabernacle  of  the 
congregation." 

Here  it  is  urged  that  "  all  the  congregation  "  must 
mean 

"  the  whole  body  of  the  people,  at  all  events  the  adult  males  in  the  prime 
of  life  among  them,  and  not  merely  the  elders  or  heads  of  the  people." 
"  The  603,550  warriors  Num.  ii.  32,  certainly  must  have  formed  a  part  of 
the  whole  congregation,  leaving  out  of  consideration  the  multitude  of  old 
men,  women,  and  children."  "  I  cannot,"  he  tells  us,  "  with  due  regard 
to  the  truth,  allow  myself  to  believe,  or  attempt  to  persuade  others  to 
believe,  that  such  expressions  as  the  above  can  possibly  be  meant  to  be 
understood  of  the  elders  only." 

He  then  demonstrates  by  a  series  of  calculations,  that 


4:8    THE  SIZE  OF  THE  COURT  OF  THE  TABERNACLE. 

this  large  mass  of  human  beings  could  never  have  stood 
at  tlie  door  of  the  tabernacle,  that  they  could  not  even 
have  stood  along  "the  whole  end  of  the  tabernacle" 
which  was  but  eighteen  feet  wide,'  nor  could  they  have 
been  crowded  into  the  entire  court  behind,  as  well  as  in 
front  of  the  tabernacle. 

We  have  carefully  followed  the  Bishop  through  his 
figures,  and  we  assure  our  readers  that  they  are  quite 
correct.  If  anybody  has  ever  been  in  doubt  before,  let 
him  never  question  it  again,  that  603,550  people  could 
not  stand  in  a  court  one  hundred  cubits  long  by  fifty 
broad.  For  this  is  what  the  argument  proves;  just  this, 
and  nothing  more.  And  now,  if  the  Bishop  would  make 
the  attempt,  we  think  it  not  unlikely  that  he  might  prove 
it  impossible  for  the  Houses  of  Parliament,  where  Great 
Britain  meets  by  her  representatives,  to  contain  the 
entire  population  of  the  British  islands.  And  if  the  full- 
grown  men  of  Victoria's  empire  were  packed  in  solid 
layers,  one  above  another,  over  the  whole  area  on  which 
these  houses  stand,  he  might  cipher  out  the  height  of  the 
column  they  would  make. 

But  while  honouring  the  Bishop's  figures,  we  must  add 
that  as  an  argument  to  discredit  the  Mosaic  narrative, 
these  calculations  are  liable  to  two  objections,  which 
seriously  vitiate  their  results.  The  first  respects  the  num- 
ber of  people  expected  or  actually  present ;  the  second, 
the  space  which  they  were  to  occupy. 

If  we  turn  to  p.  105  of  the  book  before  us,  we  shall 
find  a  passage  quoted,  Ex.  xii.  21-28,  whose  bearings 
upon  this  subject  the  Bishop  ought  not  to  have  over- 
looked.    We  there  read 

"  Then  Moses  called  for  all  the  elders  of  Israel^  and  said 
unto  them,"  etc.,  etc. 


THE  SIZE  OF  THE  COURT  OF  THE  TABERNACLE.    49 

"  And  the  people  bowed  the  head  and  worshipped. 
And  the  children  of  Israel  went  away,  and  did  as  the  Lord 
had  commanded  Moses  and  Aaron." 

And  from  ver.  3  it  appears  that  this  call  for  "  all  the 
elders  of  Israel "  was  in  pursuance  of  the  divine  com- 
mand to  speak  unto  oil  the  congregation  of  Israel. 

So  again  in  Ex.  xix.  7,  8  : 

"  And  Moses  came  and  called  for  the  elders  of  the  people^ 
and  laid  before  their  faces  all  these  words  which  the  Lord 
commanded  him.  And  all  the  people  answered  together 
and  said,  All  that  the  Lord  hath  spoken,  we  will  do." 

In  Deut.  V.  1,  "Moses  called  all  Israel^^^  and  addressed 
them  ;  in  the  course  of  his  address,  he  says,  ver.  28,  '^  Ye 
came  near  unto  me,  even  all  the  heads  of  your  tribes  and 
your  elders. ^^ 

It  hence  appears,  in  spite  of  our  author's  inability  to 
believe  what  so  thoroughly  invalidates  his  objection,  that 
the  congregation  of  Israel  might  be  represented  by  their 
elders,  and  the  elders  might  be  addressed  or  spoken  of 
as  the  congregation  who  were  represented  by  them. 
This  mode  of  speaking  is  a  familiar  one  in  ordinary  life. 
England  is  said  to  do,  what  her  authorized  representa- 
tives or  agents  do.  Colenso  himself,  in  referring,  (p.  34,) 
to  "  the  great  body  of  the  church,"  feels  it  necessary  to 
add,  by  way  of  explanation,  "  not  the  clergy  only,  but 
the  clergy  and  laity." 

The  Bishop  has  given  himself  the  needless  trouble  to 
cite  a  number  of  passages,  in  which  the  congregation 
means  not  the  elders  but  the  people  generally.  But  the 
fact  that  in  those  passages  the  congregation  is  not  spoken 
of  representatively,  does  not  weaken  the  force  of  the 
equally  evident  fact  that  in  other  passages  it  is  so  spoken 
of.     And  that  this  is  the  case  in  the  instance  now  before 

3 


50         THE   SIZE   OF   THE   COURT   OF   TFIE   TABERNACLE. 

US,  is  rendered  more  than  probable  by  the  mention,  Lev. 
ix.  1,  of  the  calling  together  of  "  the  elders  of  Israel "  for 
the  same  purpose  for  which  in  viii.  2  "all  the  congrega- 
tion" were  summoned;  and  these  elders  are  further 
spoken  of  as  "the  children  of  Israel,"  ver.  3,  and  "all 
the  congregation,"  ver.  5.  Upon  the  most  liberal  con- 
struction, all  that  we  can  be  required  to  assume  is  the 
elders  and  a  promiscuous  assembly  besides.  A  mass 
meeting  of  the  Democratic  party  does  not  mean  the  entire 
party  en  masse.  All  are  summoned,  not  in  the  sense 
that  all  are  expected  or  required  to  attend,  but  that  none 
are  excluded.  A  town  meeting  may  be  held,  though  not 
a  fiftieth  part  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  place  are  present. 
It  has  never  been  our  good  fortune  to  visit  the  city  of 
Lexington,  Ky.  But  as  we  know  that  Kev.  Dr.  Brecken- 
ridge  some  time  ago  called  a  meeting  of  its  citizens  in  the 
Court-house  on  important  business,  and,  as  they  actually 
assembled,  we  suppose  that  we  must  infer  that  there  are 
not  more  than  a  thousand  citizens  there. 

Again,  Colenso's  argument  assumes  that  the  congrega- 
tion must  have  been  gathered  "  within  the  court."  But 
although  this  is  the  basis  of  all  his  computations,  the 
court  is  not  once  mentioned  or  alluded  to  in  the  connec- 
tion. He  infers,  however,  that  they  must  have  been 
assembled  within  these  limits ;  first,  because  they  were  to 
be  gathered  unto  (or  at^  as  the  preposition  is  occasionally 
rendered)  the  door  of  the  tabernacle,  as  if  the  crowd 
would  not  be  just  as  much  at  the  door,  no  matter  how  far 
back  its  farther  extremity  extended.  And  secondly,  be- 
cause they  were  summoned  to  witness  the  ceremony  of 
Aaron's  consecration.  But  the  text  says  nothing  of  their 
witnessing  it ;  still  less  that  all,  who  were  there,  were  to 
witness  it,  or  did  witness  it.     They  might  be  present  to 


THE  SIZE  OF  THE  COURT  OF  THE  TABERNACLE.    61 

signify  their  interest  and  participation  in  it;  just  as  tlie 
people  were  without,  when  Zacharias  went  into  the  tem- 
ple to  burn  incense,  Luke  i.  9,  10.  The  court  was  no 
more  designed  or  intended  to  hold  the  entire  body  of  the 
people,  than  the  holy  of  holies  was  to  contain  Him  who 
made  it  his  symbolical  residence.  The  small  dimensions 
of  the  symbol,  and  its  inadequacy  to  embrace  that  which 
it  represented,  might  be  objected  to  the  one  as  well  as 
to  the  other. 


CHAPTER  III. 

MOSES  AND  JOSHUA  ADDRESSING  ALL  ISRAEL. 

The  next  difficulty  is  found  in — 

Deut.  i.  1.  '  These  be  the  words  which  Moses  spake 
unto  all  Israel.' 

Deut.  V.  i.  '  And  Moses  called  all  Israel  and  said 
unto  them  .  .  .  .' 

Josh.  viii.  34,  85.  '  And  afterward  he  read  all  the 
words  of  the  law,  the  blessings  and  cursings,  according 
to  all  that  is  written  in  the  book  of  the  law.  There  was 
not  a  word  of  all  that  Moses  commanded,  which  Joshua 
read  not  before  all  the  congregation  of  Israel,  with  the 
women,  and  the  little  ones,  and  the  strangers  that  were 
conversant  among  them.' 

"  Now,"  argues  the  Bishop,  "  no  human  voice,  unless 
strengthened  by  a  miracle,  of  which  the  Scripture  tells 
us  nothing,  could  have  reached  the  ears  of  a  crowded 
mass  of  people  as  large  as  the  whole  population  of 
London." 

Unfortunately  for  the  argument,  this  mark  of  the 
*  unhistorical '  is  common  to  all  history,  even  the  most 
modern  and  the  best  attested.  It  is  natural  to  infer  from 
the  above  that  no  address  is  ever  made  to  the  public  in 
London.  Hereafter  we  shall  expect  some  reasoner  of  an 
arithmetical  turn  to  establish  that  Washington's  farewell 


MOSES   AND   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL   ISRAEL.         53 

address,  containing  what  he  had  to  say  to  the  people  of 
the  United  States,  was  '  unhistorical ;'  also  that  Queen 
Victoria  never  issued  a  proclamation  to  her  subjects,  and 
that  no  general  ever  gave  orders  to  his  army  provided 
he  commanded  more  than  a  thousand  men. 

It  seems  to  be  a  pitiable  thing  to  be  obliged  to  repeat 
here  such  a  familiar,  every-day  fact,  as  that  public  and 
formal  announcements  are  often  made  without  the  slight- 
est expectation  that  all,  or  even  the  thousandth  part  of 
those  to  whom  they  are  addressed,  and  who  are  thus 
presumptively  made  acquainted  with  the  subjects  of 
them,  will  actually  hear  them.  When  the  Eoman 
feciaUs  made  their  formal  demand  of  reparation  from  a 
people  with  whom  they  had  cause  of  quarrel,  or  when 
they  uttered  their  declaration  of  war  at  the  national 
boundary,  the  whole  nation  was  presumed  to  be  thus 
apprised  of  it.  The  proclamations  at  Charing  Cross 
were  for  the  English  people.  And  what  a  voice  must 
those  champions  have  had  who  threw  down  their  chal- 
lenge to  all  the  world ! 

And  agaiu,  is  it  necessary  to  remind  the  bishop  of  the 
maxim.  Qui  facit  per  alium,  facit  per  se  ?  From  Gen. 
xxiv.  10,  he  would  probably  infer  that  the  servant  of 
Abraham  started  off  alone,  driving  ten  camels ;  but 
ver.  32  speaks  of  *  the  men  that  were  with  him.'  We 
constantly  speak  of  Christ  feeding  the  five  thousand, 
though  Matthew  xiv.  19,  tells  us  distinctly  that  *  he 
gave  the  loaves  to  his  disciples  and  the  disciples  to  the 
multitude.'  According  to  Neh.  viii.  3,  Ezra  read  in 
the  law,  and  the  ears  of  all  the  people  were  attentive  ; 
but  that  his  single  voice  was  not  expected  to  reach  the 
entire  multitude  appears  from  vers.  7,  8,  where  it  is  said 
that  he  was  aided  by  the  Levites.     With  such  analogies 


54  M0SE8    AND   JOSHUA   ADDRESSING   ALL  ISRAEL. 

one  would  think  that  no  man  in  his  senses  could  stumble 
at  the  expressions  which  have  given  offence  to  the 
Bishop,  even  if  no  explanation  was  expressly  furnished. 
But  what  shall  we  think  when  we  find  that  we  are 
explicitl}^  told  how  it  was  that  Moses  addressed  all  Israel, 
and  Joshua  read  to  them  the  blessings  and  curses  of  the 
law  ?  "Was  not  the  Bishop  aware,  or  did  he  purposely 
conceal  the  fact,  that,  according  to  Deut.  xxvii.  1, 
Moses,  with  the  elders  of  Israel^  commanded  the  people, 
and,  according  to  ver.  9,  Moses  and  the  j^^iests  the  Levites 
spake  unto  all  Israel  ?  So  in  Deut.  xxvii.  14,  the  Levites 
are  directed  to  utter  at  Ebal  and  Gerizim  with  a  loud 
voice  unto  all  the  men  of  Israel,  the  very  things  which 
Joshua,  viii.  34,  read  before  them. 


CHAPTER  lY. 

THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  CAMP,  COMPARED  WITH  THE 
priest's  DUTIES  AND  THE  DAILY  NECESSITIES  OF  THE 
PEOPLE. 

A  FRESH  ground  of  cavil  and  misrepresentation,  we 
can  characterize  it  by  no  milder  term,  is  found  in  Lev. 
iv.  11,  12,  where  the  priest  is  directed,  after  burning 
upon  the  altar  the  fat  of  a  bullock,  offered  in  sacrifice 
for  the  sin  of  a  priest,  to  '  carry '  the  rest  of  the  animal 
'  without  the  camp  unto  a  clean  place.'  Now  Colenso 
adopts  Scott's  estimate,  that  the  encampment  of  Israel 
may  be  computed  to  have  been  about  twelve  miles 
square,  that  is,  about  the  size  of  London.  There  were 
but  three  priests,  Aaron,  Eleazar,  and  Ithamar.     Accord- 

"  The  offal  of  tliese  sacrifices  would  have  had  to  be  carried  by  Aaron 
himself,  or  one  of  his  sons,  a  distance  of  six  miles."  "In  fact,  we  have 
to  imagine  the  priest  having  himself  to  carry,  on  his  back  on  foot,  from 
St.  Paul's  to  the  outskirts  of  the  metropohs,  the  skin,  and  flesh,  and  head, 
and  legs,  and  inwards,  and  dung,  even  the  whole  bullock." 

Our  author,  in  his  eagerness  to  fasten  a  blunder  upon 
Moses,  has  committed  an  egregious  one  himself.  Our 
translators  here  use  carry  as  a  sufficient  approximation 
to  the  original  expression  for  every  practical  purpose, 
and  one  which  no  sensible  person  was  in  any  danger  of 


5Q  THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  CAMP.   . 

misunderstanding.  Colenso  presses  the  English  word 
to  a  sense  which  does  not  represent  the  original  at  all. 
But,  suppose  that  for  a  moment  we  do  not  look  behind 
the  common  version.  Then  we  must  understand  from 
Gen.  xlvi.  5,  that  the  sons  of  Israel  carried  Jacob  their 
father,  and  their  little  ones  and  their  wives  "  on  their 
backs  on  foot "  in  the  wagons.  The  Chaldeans  must 
have  carried  Job's  camels  away  "  on  their  backs  on  foot," 
Job  i.  17.  And  in  the  same  way,  2  Chron.  xii.  9,  Shi- 
shak  king  of  Egypt  must  have  carried  away  the  shields 
of  gold,  and  so,  2  Kings  xviii.  11,  Israel  must  have  been 
carried  by  the  king  of  Assyria.  From  which  we  infer 
that  those  monarchs  must  have  had  unusually  strong 
backs. 

It  should  be  known,  however,  that  all  this  carrying 
business  is  foisted  into  the  text  by  Colenso  himself.  The 
word  which  Moses  uses  means  simply  to  remove,  irre- 
spective of  the  mode,  or,  more  exactly  still,  "cause  to  go 
forth,"  without  designating  the  agent  employed  in  the 
removal.  That  the  removal  was  not  performed  per- 
sonally by  the  priest  is  apparent  not  only  from  the  con- 
sideration that  the  removal  and  burning  of  what  was 
not  offered  in  sacrifice  was  in  no  sense  of  the  term  a 
sacerdotal  function,  but  also  from  the  fact  that  the  con- 
trary explicitly  appears,  not  only  in  parallel  cases  but  in 
the  very  case  under  consideration. 

In  the  ceremony  of  the  red  heifer,  Num.  xix.  1-10, 
which  was  for  special  reasons  sacrificed  without  the 
camp,  the  priest  must  attend  at  the  place  in  order  to 
sprinkle  the  blood,  which  was  a  duty  peculiarly  belong- 
ing to  the  priesthood.  And  yet,  though  he  was  at  the 
spot,  two  men  were  required  to  be  present,  who  are 
expressly  distinguished  from  him  and  from  one  another, 


THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  CAMP.  57 

the  one  to  burn  the  heifer,  '  her  skin,  and  her  flesh,  and 
her  blood,  with  her  dung,'  and  the  other  to  '  gather  up 
the  ashes  of  the  heifer  and  lay  them  up  without  the 
camp  in  a  clean  place.' 

Again,  upon  the  day  of  atonement  both  the  goat  for 
the  people's  sin-offering,  and  the  bullock  for  the  priest's 
sin-offering,  the  latter  being  the  very  case  before  us, 
were  to  be  burned  without  the  camp.  But  the  person, 
who  performed  this  service,  is  distinguished  from  the 
priest,  as  plainly  as  is  the  "  fit  man,"  by  whose  hand 
the  scape-goat  was  to  be  sent  into  the  wilderness.  Lev. 
xvi.  26-28. 

Besides,  it  may  be  consoling  to  the  Bishop  to  reflect, 
that  the  bodies  of  the  animals  sacrificed  in  the  ordinary 
offerings  were  disposed  of  in  a  much  simpler  way.  It 
was  only  the  sin-offerings  for  the  priests,  and  those 
offered  for  the  united  trespass  of  the  whole  congregation, 
which  were  to  be  burned  without  the  camp.  The  latter 
would  of  course  be  rare,  and  as  there  were  but  three 
priests,  the  former  could  not  be  frequent.  This  peculiar 
character  of  these  sacrifices  the  Bishop  unaccountably 
forgot  to  mention,  or  else  found  it  convenient  not  to  do 
so ;  leaving  his  readers  to  infer,  as  they  naturally  would, 
that  he  was  speaking  of  the  entire  body  of  the  multitu- 
dinous sacrifices  which  the  ritual  required. 

But  we  are  not  done  with  this  matter  yet.  We  have 
seen  flaws  enough  in  this  indictment  to  quash  it  three 
times  over ;  but  another  flaw  remains  to  be  detected, 
which  is  equal  in  magnitude  to  either  of  the  preceding. 
The  charge  of  the  *  unhistorical'  rests  in  this  instance 
upon  the  assumption  tacitly  made,  that  the  encampment 
of  Israel  in  the  desert  was  one  continuous  camp,  and 
that  to    carry   anything    forth    "  without  the    camp," 

3^ 


58  THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  CAMP. 

repuired  a  journey  of  "  six  miles"  from  the  centre  to  the 
outer  circumference.  Strenuously  as  Colenso  resists  the 
introduction  of  anything  not  written  in  so  many  terms 
in  the  text,  provided  it  removes  a  difficulty,  and  consists 
with  the  veracity  of  Moses,  he  has  no  repugnance  to  its 
being  done  if  it  has  an  opposite  effect.  We  might  con- 
tent ourselves  here  with  asking  him  to  prove  the  con- 
tinuity of  the  camp,  which  is  so  essential  to  his  argu- 
ment, and  which  he  has  taken  for  granted.  And  this 
not  only  without  a  particle  of  evidence,  but  in  the  face 
of  the  explicit  statements  of  the  sacred  record. 

In  Num.  ii.  comp.  i.  52,  53,  x.  14-28,  the  plan  of  Israel's 
encampment  is  minutely  described.  From  this  it  appears 
that  there  were  five  distinct  camps.  One  lay  in  the 
centre,  and  was  formed  by  the  Levites  surrounding  the 
tabernacle,  ii.  17.  Then  four  other  camps,  each  em- 
bracing three  tribes,  were  distributed  around  this 
toward  the  cardinal  points  of  the  compass.  Now,  the 
exterior  of  any  one  of  these  camps  was  '  without  the 
camp.'  Or  what  conceivable  reason  is  there,  ceremonial, 
sanitary,  or  of  any  other  sort,  why  the  ashes  of  the 
sacrifices  might  not  be  deposited  in  some  '  clean  place' 
outside  of  the  Levitical  camp  ?  but  the  person  or  persons 
entrusted  with  them,  and  with  the  ofial  which  was  to  be 
burned  '  where  the  ashes  are  to  be  poured  out,'  must 
traverse  the  unoccupied  space  between  this  and  some  other 
of  the  camps,  traverse  that  camp  also,  and  after  com- 
pleting his  "  six  miles,"  attend  to  what  he  might  just  as 
well  have  done  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  journey.  If 
this  is  the  way,  the  Bishop  teaches  the  Zulus  economy  of 
time  and  labor,  we  admire  his  wisdom  and  their  patience. 

The  relations  of  a  later  period  may  also  throw  light 
upon  the  meaning  of  this  injunction.     The  entire  en- 


THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  CAMP.  §0 

campment  of  all  the  tribes  corresponded  to  tlie  land  of 
Canaan  as  the  residence  of  the  whole  people.  The  par- 
ticular camps  which  formed  its  subdivisions  corresponded 
to  the  different  localities  in  which  the  people  dwelt 
together.  But  the  ashes  of  the  temple  and  the  offal  of 
the  sacrifices  were  not  to  be  carried  beyond  Jordan,  and 
outside  of  the  territory  of  Israel ;  they  were  deposited 
or  burned  in  the  valley  of  the  son  of  Hinnom,  just  with- 
out the  city  walls.  So  leprous  persons  were  not  banished 
beyond  the  limits  of  Palestine,  but  simply  required  to 
dwell  apart,  and  outside  of  the  town  or  city  to  which 
they  belonged,  2  Kings  vii.  3,  xv.  5.  As  the  prescriptions 
of  the  Pentateuch  are  the  only  ones  bearing  upon  this 
subject,  this  shows  how  they  were  adapted  by  the  people 
to  their  altered  circumstances,  and  of  course,  what  they 
understood  the  real  meaning  of  these  prescriptions  to  be. 
And  if  this  interpretation  be  taken  as  authoritative,  then 
to  remove  '  without  the  camp'  means  not  outside  of  the 
territory  occupied  by  the  entire  people ;  but  outside  of 
that  particular  collection  of  habitations  in  which  the 
thing  to  be  removed  happened  to  be. 

If  the  army  of  the  Potomac  consists  of  100,000  men,  it 
must  on  the  Bishop's  principles  be  a  very  formidable 
business  to  remove  the  offal  and  rubbish  outside  of  their 
camp.  He  can  calculate  for  us  what  the  size  of  an  en- 
campment must  be,  that  can  accommodate  such  a  body 
of  soldiers,  and  how  far  those  in  the  centre  must  walk 
to  reach  its  exterior  limit.  Before  he  enters,  however, 
in  real  earnest  upon  the  computation,  we  would  advise 
him  to  inquire,  whether  they  may  not  be  encamped  by 
regiments  or  divisions,  and  thus  their  labor  be  reduced, 
and  his  rendered  unnecessary. 

But  this  is  not  all.     The  Levites   were  to  encamp 


60  THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  CAMP. 

about  the  tabernacle  bj  families.  The  three  chief  fami- 
lies of  the  tribe  were  to  pitch  at  its  rear  and  on  its  two 
sides,  Num.  iii.  28,  29,  85  ;  while  Moses  and  Aaron  and 
his  sons  were  all  who  were  to  encamp  in  front  of  the 
tabernacle,  ver.  88.  So  that  in  order  to  go  from  the 
tabernacle  to  the  outside  of  the  Levitical  camp,  it  was 
necessary  to  pass  the  tents  of  these  four  men  ! 

Xow,  let  us  put  Colenso's  statements  along  side  of  the 
facts,  and  see  what  remains  of  his  argument.  The 
greater  part  of  the  body  of  a  bullock,  belonging  not  to 
the  ordinary  sacrifices  but  to  a  class  rarely  requiring  to 
be  offered,  was  to  be  carried  not  "on  the  back  on  foot," 
but  conveyed  in  any  manner  that  was  thought  proper, 
not  by  "  Aaron  himself  or  one  of  his  sons,"  but  by  any 
person  or  persons  they  chose  to  employ,  not  "  a  distance 
of  six  miles,"  but  past  the  tents  of  four  men.  And  this 
is  so  '  huge  '  a  '  difficulty '  that  the  Mosaic  origin  and  the 
credibility  of  the  Pentateuch  must  be  given  up  in  conse- 
quence !  Which  is  '  unhistorical '  now,  Moses  or  Colenso  ? 

But,  adds  the  Bishop, 

"  From  the  outside  of  this  great  camp,  wood  and  water  would  have 
had  to  be  fetched  for  all  purposes."  "  And  the  a.shes  of  the  wliole  camp, 
with  the  rubbish  and  filth  of  every  kind,  for  a  population  like  that  of 
London,  would  have  had  to  be  carried  out  in  like  manner  through  the 
midst  of  the  crowded  mass  of  people." 

Very  well.  There  are  cities  with  as  large  a  popula- 
tion as  that  of  London,  and  without  its  European 
conveniences,  or  its  system  of  sewerage,  as  Peking  for 
example,  which  continue  to  exist  in  the  same  place  not 
only  for  one  year,  or  for  forty  years,  but  for  ages  and 
centuries.  Some  how  or  other  they  manage  to  have 
their  wants  supplied,  and  their  garbage  removed.  Could 
not  Moses,  trained  at  the  court  of  Pharaoh,  have  directed 


THE  EXTENT  OF  THE  CAMP.  61 

such  matters  at  least  as  well  as  the  Chinese  ?  His  ques- 
tion whether  "  such  supplies  of  wood  or  water,  for  the 
wants  of  such  a  multitude  as  this,  could  have  been  found 
at  all  in  the  wilderness,"  properly  belongs  under  another 
head,  and  will  receive  a  sufficient  answer,  when  we  come 
to  consider  his  strictures  upon  the  subsistence  of  the 
sheep  and  cattle  of  the  Israelites  in  the  desert.  See 
Chap.  X. 

The  objector  proceeds : 

"  They  could  not  surely  all  have  gone  outside  the  camp  for  the  necessi- 
ties of  nature,  as  commanded  in  Deut.  xxiii.  12-14."  "  We  have  to 
imagine  half  a  million  of  men  going  out  daily — the  22,000  Levites  for  a 
distance  of  six  miles — to  the  suburbs  for  the  common  necessities  of  nature, 
The  supposition  involves,  of  course,  an  absurdity.  But  it  is  our  duty  to 
look  plain  facts  in  the  face." 

What  is  to  be  thought  of  the  honesty  and  truthfulness, 
not  to  say  decency,  of  a  man  who  can  talk  in  this  man- 
ner ?  The  "  plain  fact  "  is,  that  this  regulation,  as  is  mani- 
fest upon  the  very  face  of  it,  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
camp  of  the  entire  people.  It  is  expressly  confined  to 
military  expeditions.  The  paragraph  begins  (ver.  9), 
"  When  the  host  (the  original  is  without  the  definite 
article,  nin??,  a  camp)  goeth  forth  against  thine  enemies, 
then  keep  thee  from  every  wicked  thing."  Detachments 
sent  out  to  attack  their  foes  are  reminded  of  their  sacred 
character,  and  all  defilement  or  impurity  in  their  camps 
is  prohibited.  The  encampment  of  the  entire  people  was, 
no  doubt,  under  such  ceremonial  oversight  and  had  such 
police  arrangements,  as  the  nature  of  the  case  permitted 
or  required.  But  parties  on  military  duty  away  from 
the  main  body  are  here  put  under  special  rules,  whose 
wisdom,  even  in  a  sanitary  point  of  view,  is  obvious. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE  NUMBER  OF  THE  PEOPLE  AT  THE  FIRST  MUSTER, 
COMPARED  WITH  THE  POLL-TAX  RAISED  SIX  MONTHS 
PREVIOUSLY. 

Under  this  head  we  are  first  treated  to  a  precious 
specimen  of  the  bishop's  proficiency  in  Hebrew  learning. 
The  expression,  '  shekel  of  the  sanctuary,'  first  occur- 
ring in  Ex.  XXX.  13,  and  frequently  thereafter  is,  as  he 
remarks,  rendered  in  the  Septuagint  '  the  sacred  shekel.' 
"But  this,"  he  goes  on  to  say,  "  can  hardly  be  the  true 
meaning  of  the  original  ©npn  ^1?^'."  And  wh}^  not,  pray  ? 
The  merest  tyro  in  Hebrew  could  tell  him,  that  this  is 
quite  as  likely  a  meaning  of  the  phrase  as  the  other. 
The  word  c'lp  occurs  4:66  times  in  the  Old  Testament. 
Of  all  these  Gesenius,  in  his  Thesaurus,  finds  but  23 
places,  in  which  he  judges  that  it  means  the  sanctuary  or 
one  of  its  apartments,  and  five  more  in  which  it  may 
mean  it ;  and  in  none  of  these  does  the  phrase  in  ques- 
tion occur.  On  the  contrary,  he  says  of  it,  "it  is  used 
hundreds  of  times  (sexcenties)  in  the  genitive  in  place  of 
an  adjective ;"  and  he  adduces,  as  phrases  in  which  it 
occurs  in  this  sense,  "  holy  ground,  holy  place,  holy  hill, 
holy  Spirit,  holy  name,  holy  day,  holy  sabbath,  holy 
city,  holy  temple,  holy  oracle,  holy  flesh,  holy  bread 
(Eng.  ver.  hallowed),  holy  vessels,  holy  garments,  holy 


NUMBER   OF   THE   PEOPLE   AT   THE    FIEST    MUSTER.       63 

linen  coat,  holy  crown,  noly  ointment,  lioly  oil,  sacred 
SHEKEL,  holy  people,  holy  covenant." 

However,  Colenso  may  be  right  and  Gesenius  mis- 
taken ;  what  then  ? 

"  The  expression  '  shekel  of  the  sanctuary '  could  hardly  have  been  used 
in  this  way,  until  there  was  a  sanctuary  in  existence,  or  rather  until  the 
sanctuary  had  been  some  time  in  existence,  and  such  a  phrase  had  become 
familiar  in  the  mouths  of  the  people.  Whereas  here  it  is  put  into  the 
mouth  of  Jehovah,  speaking  to  Moses  on  Mount  Sinai,  six  or  seven 
months  before  the  tabernacle  was  made." 

Did  the  Israelites,  then,  pay  no  worship  to  the  God  of 
their  fathers  until  the  tabernacle  was  set  up  ?  Had  they 
no  divine  service  previous  to  this,  and  no  place  set  apart 
for  its  celebration  ?  Admitting  that  the  term  here  used 
is  to  be  translated  *  sanctuary,'  it  involves  no  allusion  to 
any  structure  and  no  implication  of  any.  It  means  first, 
holiness  in  the  abstract,  then  any  thing  holy^  and  finalty, 
a  holy  place  or  sanctuary.  The  presence  or  the  absence 
of  an  edifice  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  appropriateness 
of  the  term.  It  would  have  been  just  as  applicable  to 
the  spots  where  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  worshipped 
under  the  open  sky,  as  to  the  tabernacle  or  the  temple. 
But  if  a  building  were  required,  has  the  Bishop  forgotten 
or  did  he  intentionally  overlook  the  circumstance  that 
there  is  distinct  mention  (Ex.  xxxiii.  7)  of  a  provisional 
'  tabernacle  of  the  Congregation,'  prior  to  the  construc- 
tion of  the  one  ordained  on  Sinai  ?  And  besides  when 
would  be  a  fit  time  for  instituting  shekels  of  the  sanctuary, 
supposing  them  not  to  have  been  known  before,  if  not 
when  contributions  were  making,  and  a  uniform  tribute 
was  to  be  imposed  to  aid  in  its  erection  ?  That  this  was 
the  origin  of  the  '  shekel  of  the  sanctuary  '  appears  prob- 


64      NUMBEE   OF  THE   PEOPLE*  AT  THE   FIEST    MUSTER, 

able  not  only  from  its  never  having  been  mentioned 
before,  but  also  from  the  fact  that  its  weight  is  accurately 
defined  in  this  passage  as  though  it  were  something  new ; 

*  a  shekel  is  twenty  gerahs.' 

Ex.  xxxviii.  25,  26  records  the  payment  by  all  the 
people  of  the  required  tribute  of  half  a  shekel ;  in  Num. 
i.  1-46  all  the  people  are  numbered.  The  difficulty 
insisted  upon  here  is  "  that  the  number  of  adult  males 
should  have  been  identically  the  same  on  the  first  occa- 
sion as  it  was  half  a  year  afterwards." 

Colenso  himself  supplies  us  with  the  true  answer  to 
this  imaginary  difficulty,  though  we  must  do  him  the 
justice  to  say  it  is  without  his  intending  it.  Listen  to 
him. 

"  These  words  [viz.  Ex.  xxx.  11-13]  direct  that  whenever  a  numbering 
of  the  people  shall  take  place,  each  one  that  is  numbered  shall  pay  a 

*  ransom  for  his  soul'  of  half  a  shekel.  Now  in  Ex.  xxxviii.  26  we  read 
of  such  a  tribute  being  paid,  'a  bekah  for  every  man,  that  is,  half  a  shekel 
after  the  shekel  of  the  Sanctuary,  for  every  one  that  went  to  be  numbered, 
from  twenty  years  old  and  upward,'  that  is,  the  atonement-money  is  col- 
lected ;  but  nothing  is  there  said  of  any  censtis  being  taken.  On  the  other 
hand,  in  Num.  i.  1-  46,  more  than  six  months  after  the  date  of  the  former 
occasion,  we  have  an  account  of  a  very  formal  numbering  of  the  people, 
the  result  being  given  for  each  particular  tribe,  and  the  total  number 
summed  up  at  the  end ;  here  the  ceiisus  is  made,  but  there  is  no  indication 
of  any  atonement-money  being  paid." 

A  more  satisfactory  solution  could  not  be  desired. 
Even  if  we  were  disposed  to  be  critical,  we  would  ask  no 
other  emendation  of  the  above  than  first  the  restoration  of 
the  word  wJien^  for  which  ivhenever  has  been  quietly  sub- 
stituted in  the  first  sentence.  The  direction  is  not  a 
general  one,  but  has  relation  to  a  specific  case.  In  no 
other  instance  in  the  Old  Testament  do  we  find  this  trib- 


NUMBER  OF  THE   PEOPLE   AT  THE  FTRST    MUSTEK.      65 

ute  connected  with  a  numbering  of  the  people.  And 
secondly  we  would  insert  a  note  of  interrogation  after 
the  '  six  months '  of  the  last  sentence. 

We  have  then  in  Ex.  xxx.  according  to  Colenso,  a 
direction  that  a  tribute  and  a  census  shall  be  taken 
together.  In  Ex.  xxxviii.  the  tribute  is  collected  but 
nothing  said  of  the  census.  In  Num.  i.  the  census  is 
taken  but  nothing  said  of  the  tribute.  The  fair  inference 
from  these  premises  unquestionably  is  that  the  two  state- 
ments complete  each  other,  or  rather  that  the  two  acts 
are  mutually  supplementary,  constituting  together  the 
performance  of  what  had  been  before  enjoined.  As  it  is 
really  one  enumeration,  therefore,  it  is  not  *  surprising' 
that  the  number  given  in  both  passages  is  '  identically  the 
same.' 

The  silver  yielded  by  the  tribute  was  mainly  used  Ex. 
xxxviii.  27,  for  casting  the  '  sockets '  or  bases,  on  which 
the  upright  planks  composing  the  frame  of  the  tabernacle, 
and  the  pillars  which  supported  the  vail  were  to  rest. 
These  would  be  the  last  things  needed  before  setting  up 
the  tabernacle.  "We  are  under  no  necessity,  therefore, 
of  assuming  that  the  tribute  was  collected  until  near  the 
first  day  of  the  first  month  in  the  second  year  of  their 
departure  out  of  Egypt,  Ex.  xl.  17.  This  month  was 
largely  taken  up  with  the  work  of  rearing  the  tabernacle, 
consecrating  Aaron  and  his  sons  to  the  priesthood,  set- 
ting the  new  ritual  in  operation  and  observing  the 
annual  passover.  Then  on  the  first  day  of  the  next 
month  Num.  i.  1,  comes  the  order  to  '  take  the  sum  of  all 
the  congregation.'  In  obedience  to  this,  Moses  and 
Aaron  with  their  twelve  assistants  ver.  18,  '  assembled  all 
the  congregation  together  on  the  first  day  of  the  second 
month,  and  they  declared   their  pedigrees  after  their 


66      NUilBER   OF   THE   PEOPLE   AT   THE   FEEtST    MUSTER. 

families,  by  the  house  of  their  fathers,  according  to  the 
number  of  their  names.'  The  simple  meaning  whereof 
we  take  to  be,  that  they  assembled  the  representatives  of 
all  the  tribes,  through  whose  agency  the  tribute  had  been 
already  levied.  They  brought  with  them  the  tribute 
rolls,  which  it  would  be  necessary  to  keep  in  order  to 
certify  that  every  one  had  paid.  The  names  thus  fur- 
nished were  arranged  according  to  their  families  and 
genealogies,  and  the  entire  number  ascertained,  which 
naturally  enough  corresponded  with  the  number  of  half- 
shekels,  which  had  been  collected. 

Colenso,  however,  fails  to  draw  the  inference  which 
the  facts,  as  he  states  them,  so  naturally  warrant,  not  to 
say  imperatively  require.  After  telling  us  in  language 
already  quoted  that  in  Ex.  xxxviii.  26,  "  the  atonement- 
money  is  collected ;  but  nothing  is  there  said  of  any  cen- 
sus being  taken,"  and  in  ISTum.  i.  1-46,  "the  census  is 
made,  but  there  is  no  indication  of  any  atonement-money 
being  paid,"  he  proceeds  in  the  following  remarkable 
manner. 

"  The  omission  in  each  case  might  be  considered,  of  course,  as  accidental, 
(!)  it  being  supposed  that  in  the  first  instance  the  numbering  really  took 
place,  and  in  the  second  the  tribute  was  paid,  though  neither  circumstauce 
is  mentiori£dy 

And  on  this  basis  of  what  might  be  an  accident^  and 
this  double  supposition  of  what  is  not  mentioned^  Moses  is 
convicted  of  saying  something  which  his  defamer  regards 
as  '  surprising.'  If  the  Bishop  had  been  so  unmannerly 
as  to  charge  not  the  Jewish  legislator,  but  some  living 
Englishman  with  uttering  '  unhistorical '  statements, 
w^ould  such  a  shew  of  evidence  as  this  to  substantiate  it, 
save  him  from  judgment  of  damages  in  a  slander  suit 
before  any  court  of  the  realm  ? 


NUMBER   OF  THE   PEOPLE   AT   THE   FIRST    ArcSTER.       67 

But  suppose  we  overlook  these  possible  accidents  and 
unmentioned  suppositions,  and  concede  to  Colenso  that 
both  tribute  and  census  were  taken  twice  over  with  an 
interval  of  six  nionths.  And  we  shall  not  ask,  what  in 
the  world  Moses  meant  by  taking  a  second  census  so 
soon.  We  know  our  author  too  well  to  imagine  that  he 
would  be  troubled  bj  such  a  question.  The  gross 
absurdity  would  only  be  a  fresh  proof  that  the  narrative 
is  *  unhistorical.'  But  waiving  all  this,  what  is  the 
result  ?  "  It  is  surprising  that  the  number  of  adult 
males  should  have  been  identically  the  same  "  on  both 
occasions. 

We  confess  that  if  the  fact  were  as  Colenso  alleges,  it 
would  not  be  so  *  surprising '  to  us  as  it  appears  to  be  to 
him.  It  would  be  remarkable,  certainly,  but  not  incredi- 
ble nor  unaccountable.  And  in  order  to  justify  it  to  our 
mind,  we  would  not  be  obliged  to  resort  to  the  hypothe- 
sis, that  through  God's  marvellous  favour,  no  one  had 
died  in  the  six  months,  nor  that  the  deaths  had  been  to 
a  man  balanced  by  those  who  in  the  interval  came  of  age, 
nor  that  the  Levites  were  included  in  the  first  enumera- 
tion, though  not  in  the  second,  and  consequently  the 
increase  had  been  just  equal  to  the  number  of  that  tribe ; 
though  it  might  puzzle  him  to  disprove  any  one  of 
these  suppositions.  But  it  is  evident  that  we  have  only 
round  numbers  for  the  several  tribes  in  Num.  i.  ISTo 
units  are  given  in  any  instance,  but  either  fifties  or  even 
hundreds.  Able  expositors  have  hence  been  of  the 
opinion  that  this  tribute  was  not  collected  nor  the  enu- 
meration made  by  assessing  or  reckoning  every  indi- 
vidual singly,  but  that  the  process  was  facilitated  by  ba- 
sing it  upon  the  decimal  division  of  the  host  adopted  some 
time  before  Ex.  xviii.  25.     The  number  of  the  people 


68       NUMBER    OF   THE   PEOPLE   AT   THE  PLRST    MUSTER. 

could  be  estimated,  and  the  tribute  raised  from  the  rulers 
of  thousands,  of  hundreds,  of  fifties  or  of  tens  with  com- 
parative readiness,  and  with  sufficient  accuracy.  And  if 
this  were  really  the  method  adopted,  it  would  leave  a 
considerable  margin  for  changes  without  these  necessa- 
rily appearing  in  the  enumeration.  An  army  may  have 
the  same  number  of  brigades,  regiments,  and  companies, 
at  the  end  of  a  campaign,  that  it  had  at  the  beginning. 
And  if  the  changes  in  its  ranks  happened  to  be  incon- 
siderable, an  estimate  in  round  numbers,  where  absolute 
accuracy  is  not  insisted  upon,  would  probably  reveal  no 
change  at  all. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

THE   ISRAELITES  DWELLING  IN  TENTS. 

The  mention  of  'tents,'  Ex.  xvi.  16,  sets  the  bishop 
to  calculating  again. 

"  Two  millions  of  people  would  require  200,000  tents.  How,  then,  did 
they  acquire  these  ?"  "  Further,  if  they  had  had  these  tents,  how  could 
they  have  carried  them?"  "This  would  require  500,000  oxen,"  even  if 
the  tents  were  "of  the  lightest  modern  material,  whereas  the  Hebrew 
tents,  we  must  suppose,  were  made  of  skins,  and  were,  therefore,  much 
heavier."  "Thus  they  would  have  needed  for  this  purpose  200,000 
oxen." 

This  is  really  too  childish  to  merit  a  serious  reply. 
But  if  a  person  has  undertaken  to  wade  through  a  bog, 
he  must  not  stop  for  mud ;  so  we  labour  patiently  on. 

In  the  first  place,  then,  the  children  of  Israel  were,  as 
the  narrative  shows,  very  inadequately  supplied  with 
tents.  It  is  not  necessary  to  go  beyond  the  pages  of 
Colenso  to  demonstrate  this  sufficiently  for  our  present 
purpose.     We  make  the  following  extracts: 

^  In  Lev.  xxiii.  42,  it  is  assigned  as  a  reason  for  their  '  dwelling  in 
booths '  for  seven  days  at  the  feast  of  tabernacles,  '  that  your  generations 
may  know  that  I  made  the  children  of  Israel  to  dwell  in  booths,  when  I 
brought  them  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt.'  It  cannot  be  said  that  the  word 
'booths  '  here  means  'tents;'  because  the  Hebrew  word  for  a  booth  made 
of  boughs  and  bushes  is  quite  different  from  that  for  a  tent.     And  besides, 


70  THE    ISRA.ELITKS    DWELLING    IN    TENTS. 

in  the  context  of  the  passage  in  Leviticus,  we  have  a  description  of  the 
way  in  which  these  booths  were  to  be  made.  .  .  .  This  seems  to  fix 
the  meaning  of  the  Hebrew  word  in  this  particular  passage,  and  to  show 
that  it  is  used  in  its  proper  sense  of  booths."  Again,  "we  are  told  that 
on  the  first  day,  when  they  went  out  of  Egypt,  they  'journeyed  from 
Rameses  to  Succoth,'  Ex.  xii.  37,  where  the  name  Succoth  means  bootJis.'" 

This,  one  would  think,  establishes  clearly  enough 
that  large  numbers  of  the  people,  and  probably  the 
vast  majority  of  them,  were  destitute  of  tents,  and 
were  obliged  to  content  themselves  with  such  rude 
shelters  as  they  could  hastily  construct  from  boughs 
of  trees,  bushes,  or  whatever  came  to  hand.  Such 
is  not  Colenso's  inference,  of  course.  "  There  is  not," 
according  to  him,  "the  slightest  indication  in  the 
story  that  they  ever  did  live  in  booths."  The  mention 
of  booths  in  these  passages  "  conflicts  strangely,"  in  his 
judgment,  with  the  allusion  to  tents  in  Ex.  xvi.  16  ;  but 
not  so  strangely,  in  our  esteem,  as  his  arguments  and 
assertions  do  with  the  facts  spread  out  upon  his  own 
pages. 

Secondly,  there  are  abundant  means  of  explaining 
how  the  children  of  Israel  became  possessed  of  such 
tents  as  they  had.  We  are  required  to  believe,"  says 
the  bishop,  "that  they  had  tents;"  and  then  he  springs  at 
once  to  his  conclusion  that  they  had  200,000.  If  he  will 
but  be  more  moderate  in  his  estimate,  we  shall  try  to 
relieve  his  anxiety  as  to  the  ways  and  means  of  procur- 
ing them. 

1.  The  Israelites  were  largely  engaged  in  tending 
flocks.  This  was  their  ancestral  occupation,  and  the 
land  of  Goshen  was  assigned  to  them  for  the  very  pur- 
pose of  allowing  them  to  continue  it  under  favourable 
circumstances  and  without  offence  to  the  Egyptians,  Gen. 
xlvi.  32-34.    Now,  shepherds  are  in  the  Bible  universally 


THE   ISRAELITES    DWELLING   IN   TENTS.  Yl 

spoken  of  as  dwelling  in  tents  from  the  days  of  Jabal 
and  the  patriarchs,  Gen.  iv.  20,  xiii.  5.  Comp.  1  Chron. 
iv.  39-41,  V.  9,  10,  2  Chron.  xiv.  15,  Cant.  i.  8,  Isaiah 
xxxviii.  12,  Jer.  vi.  3,  xlix.  29.  The  only  exception  is 
doubtful  expression  in  Zeph.  ii.  6,  where,  if  our  trans" 
iators  have  hit  the  true  sense,  we  read  of  *  cottages  for 
shepherds ; '  these,  perhaps,  may  have  been  portable 
tooths  or  sheds  made  of  reeds,  such  as  Diodorus"^  says 
were  in  use  among  Egyptian  herdsmen  down  to  his  day. 
Ewaldf  thinks  they  were  huts  mounted  on  wagons,  like 
those  of  the  wandering  Scythians.:]: 

2.  The  art  of  weaving  was  familiarly  known  in  Egypt 
from  the  most  ancient  times.  That  the  Israelites  learned 
and  practised  it  even  in  its  finer  and  more  elaborate 
applications,  is  apparent  from  the  work  of  this  descrip- 
tion which  they  wrought  for  the  tabernacle,  Ex.  xxxv. 
25,  and  is  further  corroborated  by  1  Chron.  iv.  21.  This 
would  imply  ability  to  make  the  coarse  black  hair-cloth 
which  was  used  for  tents  in  ancient,  Cant.  i.  5,  as  in 
modern  times, §  even  if  this  were  not  expressly  stated, 
Ex.  xxvi.  7,  xxxv.  26,  xxxvi.  14.  In  fact,  we  find 
mention  of  hair-cloth  in  the  family  of  Jacob  before  the 
descent  into  Egypt,  Gen.  xxxvii.  34,  comp.  Kev.  vi.  12, 
So  that  we  do  not  see  why  "i^5  Tnust  suppose''''  "the 
Hebrew  tents  were  made  of  skins." 

3.  The  Israelites  had  ample  time  to  make  every  neces- 
sary preparation  for  their  journey,  while  Pharaoh  was 

*    Tof  oUfiaeis  CK  rwc  Ka\ifiOJV  KaTatTKevii^sfrOai.       DiodOF.  I.  43. 

f  Kleine  Hauachen  oder  Karren  der  Hirten.  Ewald,  Propheten  I. 
p.  367. 

J  Scythae, 

Quorum  plaustra  vagas  rite  trahunt  domos.     Hor.  Carm,  III.  24,  10. 

§  Robinson's  Biblical  Researches,  I.  p.  485;  in  the  original  edition, 
II.  p.  180. 


72  THE   ISRAELITES   DWELLING   IN   TENTS. 

persisting  in  his  refusal  to  let  them  go.  But,  says  the 
Bishop,  "  had  they  provided  this  enormous  number  [of 
tents]  in  expectation  of  marching,  when  all  their  request 
was  to  be  allowed  to  go  '  for  three  days  into  the  wilder- 
ness,'Ex.  v.  3  ?" 

Must  we  tell  him  that  the  chosen  seed  went  down  into 
Egypt  only  for  a  temporary  sojourn,  and  that  they  were 
in  constant  expectation  of  being  brought  out  of  it  to  the 
land  promised  to  their  fathers  ?  The  exodus  had  been 
divinely  foretold  to  Abraham,  Gen.  xv.  14.  The  assur- 
ance of  it  was  repeated  to  Jacob,  as  he  was  on  his  way 
into  Egypt,  Gen.  xlvi.  4.  He  testified  his  faith  in  it  as 
he  was  dying  (xlviii.  21),  and  directed  that  he  should  be 
buried  in  Canaan,  xlix.  29.  Joseph  had  the  same  confi- 
dence, and  exacted  an  oath  of  his  brethren  that  his  bones 
should  be  carried  up  from  Egypt  when  God  visited  his 
people,  1.  24-26,  Ex.  xiii.  19.  An  explanation  as  old  as 
the  Targums  (see  Targ.  on  Cant.  ii.  7)  finds  in  1  Chron. 
vii.  21  a  premature  attempt  of  the  children  of  Ephraim 
to  retake  possession  of  Canaan.  Moses,  on  his  first  arri- 
val in  Egypt,  summoned  the  elders  of  the  people  and 
informed  them  that  the  time  for  their  deliverance  had 
come,  Ex.  iii.  16  etc.,  iv.  29  etc.  How  any  sane  man 
can  believe  after  this  that  the  Israelites  had  no  further 
expectation  than  that  of  going  *  for  three  days  into  the 
wilderness'  is  very  'surprising.'  In  order  to  exhibit 
Pharaoh's  obduracy  and  unreasonableness  no  other 
request  was  made  of  him.  But  to  infer  from  this,  that 
nothing  more  was  intended,  is  on  a  par  with  the  reason- 
ing which  finds  in  God's  command  to  Abraham  to  offer 
up  his  son  an  approval  of  human  sacrifices. 

4.  The  first  allusion  to  tents  occurs  Ex.  xvi.  1,  a  full 
month  after  their  departare  out  of  Egypt.     This  would 


THE   ISRAELITES   DWELLING   IN   TENTS.  73 

give  additional  time  for  their  coDstruction,  and  perhaps, 
also,  for  their  purchase  from  the  tribes  of  the  desert. 

And  as  to  the  mode  of  carrying  these  tents,  together 
with  their  other  baggage,  will  the  Bishop  please  to  inform 
us  how  he  knows  that  they  had  not  as  many  oxen  as  his 
most  extravagant  estimate  supposes?  Even  on  that 
hypothesis,  one  hundred  men  as  rich  as  Job  might  have 
undertaken  it  on  contract,  Job  xlii.  12.  Colenso  surely 
need  not  boggle  at  their  having  even  200,000,  when 
he  argues  himself  upon  the  supposition  that  they  had 
"  two  millions  of  sheep  and  oxen,"  pp.  119,  122. 

4 


CHAPTER  YIL 

THE  ISRAELITES  ARMED. 

Hitherto  remarks  upon  the  Hebrew  text  have  been 
only  incidental  and  by  the  way :  we  now  come  npon  a 
chapter  which  is,  ex  professo^  devoted  to  this  subject. 
The  former  have  proved  so  refreshing  that  we  may  well 
anticipate  a  choice  display  of  learning  and  criticism. 
The  passage  to  which  we  are  indebted  for  so  rare  an 
entertainment  is 

Ex.  xiii.  18.  The  children  of  Israel  went  up  harnessed 
(ti-^d^n)  out  of  the  land  of  Egypt. 

The  word  here  rendered  '  harnessed,'  is  one  of  the  few 
to  be  met  with  in  the  Hebrew  Bible  whose  meaning  and 
derivation  are  exceedingly  doubtful,  and  which  has 
accordingly  been  variously  translated,  from  the  old 
Greek  interpreters  downward.  In  such  cases  lexico- 
graphers have  heretofore  been  under  the  delusion  that 
one  essential  condition  of  a  true  rendering  is  that  it  must 
suit  every  passage  in  which  the  word  occurs  ;  or,  if  this 
is  impossible,  different  senses  must  be  assumed,  sufficient 
to  meet  the  exigencies  of  every  case.  The  labours  of 
Colenso  mark  the  opening  of  a  new  era.  The  meanings 
of  difficult  words  are  henceforth  to  be  determined  so  that 
they  will  not  suit  the  context  in  which  they  stand.  It  is 
scarcely  possible  to  overestimate  the  results  which  might 


THE    ISRAELITES    AEMED.  75 

flow  from  the  ingenious  and  persevering  application  of 
tliis  hitherto  undiscovered  principle.  Those  critics,  espe- 
cially, who  are  interested  in  proving  the  statements  of 
an  author  '  unhistorical,'  will  find  the  invention  particu- 
larly valuable. 

That  we  are  not  exalting  the  merits  of  this  invention 
unduly  we  can  satisfy  our  readers,  by  exhibiting  its  ope- 
ration in  the  present  instance.  We  are  first  told  that  the 
word  t^'k^"^n  appears  to  mean  '  armed,'  or  '  in  battle 
array.'  Inasmuch  as  these  two  meanings  are  far  from 
being  coincident,  we  might  ask  which  is  to  be  preferred  ? 
and  why  ?  Does  it  mean  that  the  people  were  drawn  up 
in  regular  ranks,  or  that  they  had  arms  in  their  hands  ? 
Without  pausing,  however,  over  such  impertinent  ques- 
tions, without  even  intimating  that  he  is  restricting  the 
signification  of  the  word  beyond  his  own  statement  of  it, 
our  author  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that  it  means 
'  armed,'  and  that  only,  adding  immediately,  "  it  is  incon- 
ceivable, however,  that  these  down-trodden,  oppressed 
people  should  have  been  allowed  by  Pharaoh  to  possess 
arms."  One  would  suppose  from  this  that  he  was  about 
correcting  an  opinion  too  hastily  formed,  and  modifying 
a  definition  which  he  finds  not  to  meet  the  exigencies  of 
the  case.  But  no !  the  inappropriate  meaning  is  left 
undisturbed.  It  does  not  prove  Colenso  wrong,  but  the 
narrative  false. 

Gresenius  defines  the  word  (see  his  Lexicon  translated 
by  Prof.  Robinson)  fierce^  active^  eagei\  brave  in  battle. 
Would  it  not  have  been  well  to  have  stated  his  reasons, 
if  he  had  any,  for  setting  this  definition  aside  ?  At  least 
would  it  not  have  been  candid  to  have  mentioned  the 
fact,  which  is  strangely  omitted  in  his  disquisition,  that 
the    standard   lexicographer  of  the  day  had  assigned 


^6  THE   ISRAELITES    ARMED. 

these  meanings  to  it?  What  has  he  to  object  to  the 
representation  that  the  children  of  Israel  went  out  of  the 
land  of  their  bondage  like  a  victorious  army,  laden  with 
spoils  and  with  all  the  eager  impetuosity^  which  charac- 
terizes such  a  host  ? 

In  order  to  prove  that  the  Israelites  could  not  have 
had  arms  in  their  possession,  he  makes  the  following 
most  unlucky  allusion  to  the  father  of  history. 

**  The  warriors  formed  a  distinct  caste  in  Egypt,  as  Herodotus  tells  us, 
ii.  165,  •  being  in  number,  when  they  are  most  numerous,  160,000,  none 
of  whom  learn  any  mechanical  art,  but  apply  themselves  wholly  to  military 
affairs.'" 

The  unaccountable  negligence  of  this  quotation,  to 
call  it  nothing  worse,  will  appear  in  the  first  place  from 
the  fact,  that  Herodotus  is  there  speaking  of  but  one 
division  of  the  "  caste"  of  native  warriors.  In  the  very 
next  paragraph  he  speaks  of  another  division  amounting 
to  250,000.  In  the  second  place,  these  native  warriors 
did  not  exclude  mercenaries,  as  he  would  have  seen  if  he 
had  read  the  second  paragraph  before  the  one  from 
which  he  quotes ;  not  to  say  that  he  might  have  learned 
it  from  the  prophet  Jeremiah  xlvi.  21.  Eawlinson  in 
iiis  Herodotus,  vol.  ii.  p.  199,  remarks  that  "  the  ancient 
kings  in  the  glorious  times  of  Egypt's  great  power  had 
foreign  auxiliaries ;  they  were  levies  composing  part  of 
the  army,  like  those  of  the  various  nations  which  con- 
tributed to  the  expeditions  of  Xerxes  and  other  Persian 
monarchs."  Wilkinson  in  his  Manners  and  Customs 
of  the  Ancient  Egyptians,  vol.  i.  p.  287,  says,  "  Besides 
the  native  corps  they  had  also  mercenary  troops,  who 
were  enrolled  either  from  the  nations  in  alliance  with  the 
Egyptians,  or  from  those  who  had  been  conquered  by 
them  ....  Strabo  speaks  of  them  as  mercenaries ;  and 


THE   ISRAELITES   ARMED.  77 

the  million  of  men  he  mentions  must  have  included  these 
foreign  auxiliaries."  Can  Colenso  prove  that  Pharaoh 
did  not  make  use  of  Israelites  in  his  army  as  Great 
Britain  does  of  Sepoys  in  India  ?  And  besides,  in  spite 
of  his  sneer  at  the  idea  of  '  borrowing '  arms,  can  he 
prove  that  the  Egyptians  did  not  supply  the  Israelites 
with  these  as  well  as  other  necessaries  for  their  journey, 
in  their  urgency  to  have  them  go  ? 

As  the  Bishop  has  been  studying  this  subject  *'  less 
than  two  years"  (p.  12),  he  cannot  be  expected  as  yet  to 
have  read  very  extensively  upon  it.  We  would  advise 
him,  however,  not  to  meddle  much  with  Egyptian  anti- 
quities. The  less  that  is  said  about  them  by  one  who 
undertakes  to  prove  the  Pentateuch  '  unhistorical,'  the 
better.  These  antiquities  furnish  too  many  evidences 
both  of  its  truth  and  of  its  having  been  written  in  the 
midst  of  the  scenes  which  it  describes. 

Apart,  however,  from  "  the  stubborn  word  ^"^"ip^r^,'*  the 
bishop  tells  us  ''  we  must  suppose  that  the  whole  body  of 
600,000  warriors  were  armed,  when  they  were  numbered, 
Num.  i.  3."  Why  so  ?  If  he  had  ever  heard  of  the 
American  militia  system  before  the  war  which  now 
desolates  this  continent,  he  would  have  known  that  to  be 
enrolled  as  '  able  to  go  forth  to  war,'  and  to  be  armed, 
are  not  convertible  expressions.  "  And,  besides,  where 
did  they  get  the  armour  with  which  about  a  month  after 
[leaving  Egypt]  they  fought  the  Amalekites,  Ex.  xvii. 
8-13?"  We  presume  that  a  battle  might  be  fought 
without  the  entire  600,000  being  armed  and  engaging 
in  it. 

But  if  "  they  had  come  to  be  possessed  of  arms,  is  it 
conceivable  that  600,000  armed  men,  in  the  prime  of 
life,  would  have  cried  out  in  panic  terror  *  sore  afraid,' 


78  THE   ISRAELITES   ARMED. 

Ex.  xiv.  10,  when  they  saw  that  they  were  being  pur- 
sued ?"  We  hope  that  by  this  time  the  ingenuity  of  the 
Bishop's  device,  and  the  marvellous  success  of  his  inven- 
tion will  be  apparent.  The  method,  it  will  be  secD,  need 
not  be  confined  to  strict  lexicography.  The  range  of  its 
applicability  equals  that  of  the  philosopher's  stone.  It 
can  be  applied  to  anything  whatever,  and  invariably 
with  the  same  result.  Fix  your  theory  so  that  it  shall 
not  correspond  with  the  facts,  and  then  woe  be  to  the 
facts  !  Arrive  at  your  conclusion  from  an  ex  parte  state- 
ment of  the  case ;  after  this  has  been  settled,  introduce 
the  considbratioDS  which  are  incompatible  with  it,  and 
the  falsity  of  the  narrative  follows  of  course.  It  would 
be  in  vain  to  expect  the  Bishop  to  reconsider  his  argu- 
ment on  account  of  this  or  any  other  difficulty,  that  may 
be  in  the  way.  That  is  Moses'  concern,  not  his.  All 
that  remains  for  us,  is  timidly  to  suggest  that  the  unex- 
pected appearance  of  Pharaoh's  chariots  might  spread 
terror  in  an  undisciplined  throng,  encumbered  as  the 
Israelites  were,  even  if  they  had  arms  in  their  hands,  as 
one  of  the  formidable  iron-clads  of  modern  times  might 
drive  any  number  of  infantry  beyond  the  reach  of  its 
death-dealing  guns.  Comp.  Judg.  iv.  3. 

The  philological  argument  of  this  chapter,  then, 
amounts  to  this.  The  word  tj'^c^n  means  either  armed 
or  in  battle  array  (though  Gesenius  defines  it  differently) ; 
therefore  the  Israelites  had  arms  ;  therefore  they  were  all 
armed.  But  they  could  not  have  been  all  armed.  There- 
fore the  narrative  is  untrue.  The  question  involuntarily 
forces  itself  upon  us.  Is  not  a  residence  among  the  Zulus 
unfavourable  to  the  development  of  the  understanding  ? 

The  remarks  and  calculations,  with  which  we  are  fur- 
ther favoured,  respecting  the  alternate  hypothesis  that  the 


THE   ISRAELITES   AEMED.  T9 

word  &'^'23^n  is  radically  connected  with  the  numeral  ^t^e, 
and  that  it  consequent!}^  means  "  five  in  a  rank,"  present 
abundant  matter  for  comment.  As  they  are  of  no  con- 
sequence to  the  argument,  however,  we  pass  them  by, 
simply  observing  that,  upon  like  principles,  a  garrison 
decimated  by  disease  must  have  lost  precisely  one-tenth, 
and  WiniQv-quarters  must  mean  the  fourth  part  of  some- 
thing. 

How  if  the  word  has  the  sense,  which  Cocceius  attri- 
butes to  it,  of  numhered  or  helonging  to  a  numbered  host  ? 
It  would  then  be  equivalent  to  the  Greek  -rsfx'rrajwj  which 
denotes  strictly  (see  Liddell  and  Scott)  to  count  on  five 
fingers^  or  count  by  fives,  then  generally  to  count.  And 
the  Latin  numeri  is  used  as  a  military  term  for  a  division 
of  an  army.  Or  how,  if  d'^'^i^n  means,  what  Gresenius 
says  it  would, -if  it  were  referred  to  the  numeral  five, 
quinquepartitum,  or  consisting  of  five  parts,  the  centre, 
the  two  wings,  and  the  front  and  rear  guard,  and  hence 
obtains  the  more  general  sense  in  battle  array  f  What 
would  then  become  of  his  calculation  that  "  they  must 
have  formed  a  column  sixty-eight  miles  long,  and  it 
would  have  taken  several  days  to  have  started  them  all 
off,  instead  of  their  going  out  all  together  that  selfsame 
day?" 


CHAPTER  Yin. 

THE   INSTITUTION    OF  THE   PASSOVER. 

The  next  chapter,  headed  as  above,  is  so  transparent 
and  glaring  a  misrepresentation,  that  no  one  can  be 
deceived  b}'-  it,  and  we  cannot  persuade  ourselves  to  delay 
upon  it.  The  whole  seeming  force  of  it  rests  upon  the 
assumption  and  the  assertion,  directly  in  the  face  of  the 
plain  statements  of  the  narrative,  that  the  first  instruc- 
tions to  the  children  of  Israel  respecting  the  passover 
were  given  to  them  on  the  day  that  it  was  to  be  killed, 
and  that  the  '  borrowing '  from  the  Egyptians  was  done 
"  at  a  moment's  notice." 

It  is  true  that  they  were  directed,  Ex.  xii.  3,  to  take 
the  lamb  on  the  tenth  day  of  the  month,  and,  ver.  6,  to 
keep  it  up  until  the  fourteenth,  and  then  kill  it.  But  this, 
instead  of  showing  that  they  had  at  least  four  days'  notice, 
only  makes  "the  story"  "perplexing  and  contradictory!" 
For  does  not  the  Lord  say,  in  the  yery  same  connection, 
ver.  12,  *I  will  pass  through  the  land  of  Egypt  ihis 
night '  ?  This  is  further  fortified  by  an  appeal  to  the 
original  Hebrew ;  "  the  expression  is  distinctly  n^ri, 
this,  not  v^'^r\r\^  thaty  We  fear  that  the  Bishop  and  his 
Hebrew  dictionary  are  comparative  strangers  to  each 
other ;  how  else  could  he  have  overlooked  the  fact,  that 
one  of  the  meanings  of  nt  is  thai  which  has  just  been  men- 


THE   INSTITUTION   OF   THE   PASSOVER.  81 

Honed  (Gesen.  sub  verho),  a  sense  in  whicli  it  is  frequently 
rendered  *  the  same '  in  the  common  English  version,  e.  g. 
Gen.  vii.  11,  18,  Ex.  xix.  1.  '  This  night,'  accordiLg  to 
Hebrew  usage,  means  the  night  spoken  of  immediately 
before,  and  not  necessarily  the  one  succeeding  the  mo- 
ment of  speaking.  If  Colenso  continues  his  investiga- 
tions, we  expect  to  hear  of  a  much  more  serious  difficulty 
than  this  in  Deut.  ix.  1.  Moses  there  says  to  Israel, 
'Thou  art  to  pass  over  Jordan  this  day.^  We  must 
accordingly  assume  that  all  that  follows  to  the  end  of  the 
book,  including  the  death  of  Moses  and  the  thirty  days 
mourning  for  him,  took  place  within  the  next  twelve 
hours. 

The  allegation  that  the  'borrowing'  was  performed 
"at  a  moment's  notice,"  is,  if  possible,  yet  more  inex- 
cusable. The  people  were  not  only  told  what  to  do,  at 
least  four  days  beforehand,  Ex.  xi.  2,  but  they  were 
spoken  to  on  the  subject  when  Moses  first  returned  to 
Egypt,  Ex.  iii.  21,  22,  iv.  30. 

The  "second  notice,  to  start,"  given  "at  midnight,"  is 
a  fabrication  of  Colenso's  own.  The  people  had  been 
instructed  how  to  act  long  before ;  and  the  urgency  of 
the  Egyptians  to  send  them  out  of  the  country,  Ex.  xii. 
33,  left  them  no  option. 

All  the  computations  of  the  chapter  about  sheep,  and 
territory,  and  population,  and  the  time  required  to  circu- 
late notices,  however  interesting  in  themselves,  are 
nothing  to  the  purpose,  for  which  they  are  alleged,  of 
proving  the  statements  of  Moses  self  contradictory  or 
incredible.  There  is  a  Hebrew  criticism  embedded  in 
this  discussion,  however,  which,  whether  just  or  not,  is 
of  so  striking  a  nature,  that  it  would  be  unpardonable 
not  to  mention  it.     Jehovah  was  to  ''stride  across  (ncB) 

4* 


82  THE   mSTTTUTION   OF   THE   PASSOYEK. 

the  threshold,  and  protect  the  house  from  the  angel  of 
death."  'Passover,'  then,  is  a  misnomer;  the  festival 
should  be  called  Stride-over.  We  commend  this  to  the 
careful  consideration  of  the  children  of  Abraham. 


BIBLIOaRAPHY. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THE  MAECH  OUT  OF  EGYPT. 

Under  this  caption  we  are  first  presented  with  a 
re-hash  of  the  unfounded  assumptions  of  the  preceding 
chapter  respecting  the  suddenness  of  the  call  to  leave 
Egypt.  Then  follow  a  few  more  of  the  same  sort.  After 
being  summoned  "suddenly  at  midnight,"  the  "  two  mil- 
lions" of  Israelites  "come  in  from  all  parts  of  the  land 
of  Goshen  to  Rameses,"  and  were  then  "  started  again 
from  Rameses  that  very  same  day,  and  marched  on  to 
Succoth."  Finally,  "on  the  third  day,  they  turned  aside 
and  *  encamped  by  the  sea.'     Ex.  xiv.  2." 

In  proof  that  they  came  in  from  Goshen  to  Rameses 
just,  as  it  would  seem,  for  the  sake  of  marching  back 
again,  he  appeals  to  Ex.  xii.  37 — *  And  the  children  of 
Israel  journeyed  from  Rameses  to  Succoth,  about  six 
hundred  thousand  on  foot  that  were  men,  beside  chil- 
dren.' 

The  following  view  of  the  case  which  Colenso  himself 
quotes  from  Kurtz,  is  intrinsically  so  probable,  that  it 
must  commend  itself,  we  think,  to  every  sober-minded 
person,  and  show  both  the  needlessness  and  inadmissibility 
of  the  preceding  hypothesis.  Kurtz  says,  "  Rameses  was 
the  capital  of  the  province.  There,  no  doubt,  Moses  and 
Aaron  were  residing.     The  procession  started  thence ; 


84  THE   MARCH   OUT   OF   EGYPT. 

and  after  the  main  body  had  set  ont,  smaller  parties  came 
from  all  directions,  as  speedily  as  possible,  and  joined  it 
at  the  point  of  the  road  nearest  to  their  own  dwellings." 

Suppose,  however,  that  we  allow  all  the  marching  and 
countermarching  which  the  Bishop  wishes  to  foist  into 
the  narrative,  how  would  this  affect  the  credit  of  the 
sacred  historian  ?  The  objector  wishes  us  to  believe  that 
the  time  into  which  this  was  crowded  was  too  limited  for 
its  performance.  After  reaching  Earnest  they  were  fifty 
or  sixty  miles  from  the  sea,  and  this  could  not  be  trav- 
ersed by  such  an  immense  host  against  '  the  third  day.' 

But  this  '  third  day '  is  a  pure  figment ;  there  is 
nothing  said  about  it  in  Exodus.  Moses  does  not  tell 
us  how  long  it  took  the  people  to  reach  the  Eed  Sea. 
He  mentions  indeed  that  they  went  "from  Kameses  to 
Succoth,  fi'om  Succoth  to  Etham,  and  from  Etham  to  the 
Red  Sea."  But  it  is  nowhere  stated  that  they  were  only 
a  day  in  passing  from  one  of  these  points  to  that  next  in 
order.  And  that  this  is  not  his  meaning  appears  from 
the  fact  that  if  their  marches  after  crossing  the  Red  Sea, 
Ex.  XV.  22-xvi.  1,  be  interpreted  in  the  same  wa}^, 
they  ought  to  have  reached  the  wilderness  of  Sin  in  ten 
days,  whereas  a  month  was  consumed  in  getting  there. 

And  here  the  Bishop  is  guilty  of  downright  dishonesty 
in  garbling  a  quotation  from  Kurtz  to  suit  his  purposes. 
Professing  to  give  the  views  of  that  eminent  scholar,  he 
carefully  conceals  from  his  readers  the  opinion  which 
Kurtz  strenuously  maintains  and  in  our  judgment  incon- 
trovertibly  establishes,  that  the  distance  from  one  station 
or  place  of  encampment  to  another  may  as  naturally  be 
several  days'  journey  as  one,  compare  Num.  xxxiii.  8. 
This  is  kept  back  not  only  by  omitting  what  Kurtz  saj^s 
on  that  point,  but  by  sundering  the  quotations,  which 


THE   MARCH   OUT   OF   EOYPT.  85 

are  made,  from  tlieir  true  connection  so  as  to  produce  a 
false  impression  of  their  meaning,  by  transposing  a  sen- 
tence for  the  same  purpose,  and  more  fraudulently  still, 
by  omitting  the  following  sentence  from  what  purports 
to  be  a  connected  quotation,  viz.  "The  following  con- 
siderations also  serve  to  show,  that  the  Israelites  must 
necessarily  have  spent  more  than  three  days  on  their  march 
from  Eameses  to  their  encampment  by  the  sea."  This 
suggestion  would  be  fatal  to  all  his  quibbling  objections. 
And  as  there  was  no  reply  that  could  be  made  to  it,  he 
chose  an  easy  but  dishonourable  method  of  ridding  him- 
self of  all  perplexity.  What  would  the  "  simple-minded 
but  intelligent"  Zulus  say  to  such  conduct  as  this  on 
the  part  of  their  bishop  ?  If  he  has,  as  he  claims  (p.  85), 
"  renounced  the  hidden  things  of  dishonesty  "  it  must  be 
in  a  sense  widely  different  from  that  in  which  the  apostle 
intended  the  phrase. 

The  question  raised  at  the  close  of  this  chapter  as  to 
the  subsistence  of  the  people  and  their  flocks  upon  the 
march  properly  belongs  to  the  chapter  next  ensuing. 


CHAPTER  X. 

THE  SHEEP  AND  CATTLE  OF  THE  ISRAELITES  IN  THE 
DESERT. 

"  The  people,  we  are  told,  were  supplied  with  manna. 
But  there  was  no  miraculous  provision  of  food  for  the 
herds  and  flocks."  How,  then,  did  the  latter  gather  sub- 
sistence in  that  inhospitable  wilderness  ? 

It  is  so  obvious  that  the  vast  multitude  of  men  and 
animals,  which  went  out  of  Egypt  with  Moses,  could  not 
have  been  supported  in  the  desert  for  forty  years  by 
mere  natural  means,  that  this  has  always  been  a  great 
stumbling-block  to  those  who  insist  upon  measuring  the 
facts  of  the  Bible  by  the  standard  of  ordinary  history. 
But  if  any  think  to  escape  this  difficulty  by  denying  the 
truth  of  the  facts,  they  will  only  involve  themselves  in 
others  which  are  still  more  insurmountable. 

All  Jewish  history  is  a  fable,  if  the  Exodus  be  untrue. 
Not  to  insist  upon  the  corroborations  from  profane  his- 
torians, which  would  thus  be  unaccounted  for,  the 
Egyptian  Manetho,  Tacitus,  Justin,  and  others,  every- 
thing in  Judaism  is  built  upon  it,  and  presupposes  it. 
How  did  such  a  tradition  originate,  or  ever  gain  preva- 
lence, if  it  were  false  ?  There  was  nothing  in  it  to  gratify 
national  vanity,  but  everything  to  humiliate  it,  and  to 
shock  their  prejudices.     That  their  fathers  had  been  in 


THE  SHEEP  AND  CATTLE  OF  THE   ISRAELITES.  87 

bondage  to  the  11110110111110136(1  Egyptians, — that  they  had 
grown  to  be  a  nation,  not  on  the  sacred  soil  of  Palestine, 
but  In  the  profane  land  of  idolaters — that  the  most  solemn 
revelations  of  Jehovah,  including  the  fundamental  law 
of  their  nation,  were  given  not  at  Jerusalem,  but  in  a 
desert  two  hundred  miles  away, — that  a  whole  generation 
of  their  fathers  had  been  so  faithless  as  to  be  doomed  to 
die  in  the  desert,  and  even  the  great  lawgiver  himself, 
and  the  first  high  priest  had  been  debarred  from  entering 
the  holy  land ;  is  it  conceivable  that  these  were  inventions 
of  the  Jewish  mind,  or  that  they  ever  could  have  entered 
into  the  faith  of  the  nation  if  they  were  not  undeniable 
facts  ? 

Moreover,  these  are  not  vague  uncertain  traditions, 
which  were  spoken  of  doubtfully,  or  stated  variously  at 
different  times  and  places,  though  even  if  this  were  the 
case  we  would  still  be  obliged  to  assume  a  historical 
hasis  to  account  satisfactorily  for  their  origin.  But  in  all 
that  multitude  of  allusions  to  the  subject  or  declarations 
respecting  it,  which  abound  throughout  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, there  is  no  hesitation  and  no  diversity.  The  same 
story -is  told,  or  is  implied  everywhere.  There  can  be 
no  question  that  it  expresses  the  universal  faith  of  the 
Israelitish  people. 

But  further,  when  did  this  story  originate  and  under 
what  circumstances  ?  We  have  in  the  first  place,  in  the 
Pentateuch,  a  contemporaneous  history  of  the  march 
from  Egypt  to  Canaan.  For  though  Colenso  may  scoff 
and  deride  its  claims,  these  are  too  firmly  established  to 
be  shaken.  But  besides  this,  we  can  trace  it  through  the 
entire  subsequent  literature  of  the  Hebrews  from  first  to 
last.  Prophets,  psalmists,  historians,  speak  of  it  as  well 
known  and  undeniable.     The  book  of  Joshua  belonging 


08  THE   SHEEP   AND   CATTLE   OF   THE   ISRAELITES. 

to  the  age  next  succeeding  tliat  of  Moses,  and  written  by 
one  who  participated  in  the  miraculous  crossing  of  the 
Jordan,  Josh.  v.  1,  lends  it  the  most  unequivocal  sanction 
and  is  in  fact  inexplicable  on  every  page  without  it.  Or 
if  Colenso  could  succeed  in  sweeping  away  both  Joshua 
and  the  Pentateuch  by  the  potent  wand  of  his  arithmeti- 
cal criticism.  Judges  would  utter  its  testimony,  ii.  1,  et 
passim.  Even  unbelieving  critics  do  not  venture  to 
deny  the  antiquity  and  originality  of  the  song  of  Debo- 
rah, and  that  makes  express  mention  of  the  supernatural 
revelation  at  Sinai,  Judg.  v.  5,  which  implies  and  sanc- 
tions all  the  rest. 

But  there  is  more  to  be  explained  than  the  existence 
of  written  testimonies  of  too  early  a  date  and  too  near 
the  time  of  the  event,  to  admit  of  the  growth  of  an 
unfounded  tradition,  even  if  sucb  a  tradition  could  have 
originated  in  the  Jewish  mind  after  any  lapse  of  time,  or 
if  such  uniformity  of  statement  on  the  part  of  such  a 
multitude  of  voices  could  be  accounted  for  otherwise 
than  by  the  supposition  of  the  truth  of  what  is  thus 
attested.  The  facts  of  Jewish  history  presuppose  what 
the  Pentateuch  records,  and  are  susceptible  of  no  other 
solution.  The  fragments  of  aboriginal  tribes  occupying 
portions  of  Canaan  along  with  Israel,  some  of  them,  as 
the  Philistines,  even  long  disputing  the  preeminence  with 
them,  show  that  Israel  had  intruded  themselves  from 
abroad  and  thrust  out  the  primitive  possessors  of  the 
soil.  The  peculiar  position  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  dispersed 
among  the  other  tribes,  and  owning  no  inheritance  of  its 
own,  implies  its  separation  to  sacerdotal  service  before 
Canaan  had  been  entered.  That  the  sanctuary  of  God 
was  a  tent  or  tabernacle  prior  to  the  erection  of  Solomon's 
temple  implies  the  migratory  sojourn  in  the  wilderness. 


THE  SHEEP  AND  CATTLE  OF  THE  ISEAELITE8.     89 

And  not  only  facts  like  these,  which  cannot  be  denied 
or  explained  away,  if  all  history  is  not  to  be  dissolved 
into  a  mere  illusion,  but  the  permanent  institutions  of 
Israel  bear  the  ineffaceable  impress  of  the  exodus.  The 
annual  passover  and  the  feast  of  tabernacles  were  public 
stated  commemorations  of  the  coming  out  of  Egypt  and 
the  abode  in  the  wilderness.  These  were  instituted  at 
the  time  when  the  events  themselves  took  place,  and 
were  perpetuated  ever  since,  fathers  to  sons  explaining 
the  meaning  of  the  observance.  The  pot  of  manna  and 
Aaron's  rod  that  budded  were  preserved  in  the  sanctuary, 
and  the  brazen  serpent  was  in  existence  until  the  days 
of  Hezekiah,  2  Kings  xviii.  4.  And  then,  there  is  the 
ceremonial,  which,  with  all  its  multitudinous  prescrip- 
tions, has  nevertheless  such  a  unity  of  purpose  and  of 
idea,  as  shows  that  it  is  no  conglomerate  made  up  of  the 
slow  accretions  of  ages,  and  of  heterogeneous  materials 
gathered  from  diverse  quarters,  but  is  a  consistent  sys- 
tem, the  work  of  one  mind,  and  introduced  in  its  com- 
pleteness. Now,  this  points  to  the  wilderness  as  the 
place  of  its  origin,  by  numerous  injunctions,  which  enter 
as  constituent  parts  into  the  ceremonial  system,  and  yet 
which  derive  their  form  from  the  circumstances  of  that 
period,  e.  g.  the  minute  specifications  respecting  the 
transportation  of  the  tabernacle  and  its  furniture,  Num. 
iv.  5  etc.,  the  burning  of  parts  of  certain  sacrifices 
without  the  camp^  Lev.  iv.  12,  the  removal  of  lepers 
without  the  carap^  Lev.  xiii.  46.  And  still  further,  the 
ceremonial  contains  not  a  few  undoubted  Egyptian  ele- 
ments. These  are  not  so  numerous  nor  so  pervading  as 
Spencer  maintained  in  the  interest  of  rationalism,  and 
yet  they  are  sufficient  to  show  beyond  question  that  the 
people   must  have   stood    in   an    intimate    relation   to 


90  THE    SHEEP   AND   CATTLE   OF   THE    ISRAELITES. 

Egypt  at  the  time  when  this  sj^stem  was  given  to 
them. 

This  is  no  prejudice  to  the  inspiration  of  Moses,  or  to 
the  divinity  of  the  law  given  through  him.  It  neither 
disproves  nor  degrades  the  inspiration  of  the  apostles 
that  they  taught  heavenly  truths  to  the  world  in  the  lan- 
guage of  Greece.  Nor  are  the  sublime  revelations  of 
Ezekiel  and  of  Daniel  less  truly  from  God,  because 
clothed  in  the  garb  of  symbols  suggested  or  modified  by 
the  colossal  and  grotesque  forms  perpetually  before  their 
eyes  in  Babylonia.  With  the  symbolical  language  of 
Egypt  both  Moses  and  the  people  were  familiar.  The 
religion  of  Egypt,  with  its  absurd  abominations,  the 
lawgiver  utterly  discards.  But  in  setting  forth  the  pure 
and  heavenly  truths  of  the  religion  of  the  true  God,  he 
draws  upon  symbols  with  which  they  were  already 
acquainted,  purging  them  from  every  heathenish  and 
false  association,  and  brinsring^  them  into  such  connections 

'  DO 

that  they  aptly  represent  precisely  what  he  would  have 
them  teach.  It  is  just  as  the  apostles  adopted  words 
which  in  the  mouths  of  pagan  Greeks  had  low  and 
unworthy  senses,  and  infused  into  them  the  spirit  of  the 
Christian  revelation,  thus  regenerating  the  language 
while  they  used  it.  And  as  the  idiom  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament affords  an  index  to  the  time,  the  country,  and  the 
circumstances  in  which  it  was  written,  so  the  idiom  of 
the  ceremonial  of  Moses,  if  we  may  so  speak,  the  cha- 
racter and  affinities  of  the  symbols  which  he  employs, 
show  it  to  have  come  from  a  man  familiar  with  Egyptian 
institutions,  and  to  have  been  introduced  into  Israel  at  a 
period  when  the  people  possessed  such  a  familiarity  like- 
wise. 

These  considerations  thus  hastily 'hinted  at,  and  which 


THE   SHEEP   AND   CATTLE   OF  THE   ISRAELITES.  91 

miglit  be  corroborated  and  expanded  indefinitely,  show 
beyond  a  doubt  that  the  great  fiicts  of  the  exodus  are 
true.  Colenso  may  cavil  and  calculate  till  doomsday, 
but  he  cannot  unsettle  what  is  thus  woven  into  the  very 
texture  of  everything  relating  to  the  Israelitish  people, 
their  history,  their  literature,  and  their  institutions. 
Here  are  indisputable  facts  to  be  accounted  for,  which  no 
imposture  could  have  effected  and  which  no  mystification 
can  obscure.  We  affirm  unhesitatingly  that  no  hypo- 
thesis can  be  framed  which  will  satisfactorily  account  for 
them,  but  that  of  the  truth  of  the  narrative,  marvellous 
as  it  may  be,  which  is  given  by  Moses.  And  hence,  as 
Colenso  acknowledges,  even  a  man  like  Ewald,  prover- 
bial in  Germany  itself  for  stopping  at  no  extravagance 
of  criticism  and  no  wildness  of  hypothesis,  feels  com- 
pelled to  confess,  if  the  whole  history  of  Israel  is  not  to 
be  frittered  away,  that  the  fact  of  the  exodus  and  of  the 
sojourn  in  the  wilderness  is  undeniably  true. 

"Ewald  certainly  asserts  this,"  viz.  that  "the  general  truth  of  the 
wanderings  in  the  wilderness  is  an  essential  preliminary  to  the  whole 
of  the  subsequent  history  of  Israel;"  "but  I  cannot  find  any  place 
where  he  shows  it.  The  story  of  the  Exodus  is  no  doubt  an  *  essential 
preliminary'  to  certain  parts  of  the  subsequent  history  of  Israel,  as 
recorded,  but  not  to  the  whole  of  it.  If  that  story  be  shown  to  be  untrue, 
those  parts  may  also  have  to  be  abandoned  as  untrue,  but  not  the  whole 
Jewish  history." 

We  would  like  to  have  the  Bisbop  specify  which 
these  '  certain  parts  '  of  the  history  are  that  he  would  be 
willing  to  give  up  for  the  sake  of  getting  rid  of  the 
Exodus.  AYe  fancy  there  would  be  very  little  left.  He 
might  as  well  undertake  to  explain  American  history  on 
the  hypothesis  that  this  country  was  not  settled  from 
Europe. 


92  THE   SHEEP   AND  CATTLE   OF  THE   ISRAELITES. 

The  fact  must  be  accepted,  therefore,  with  all  its  diffi- 
culties. This  vast  multitude  of  men  and  animals  did 
march  into  the  desert,  and  continued  there  for  forty  years. 
How  did  they  subsist? 

We  reply,  in  the  first  place,  that  the  natural  produc- 
tions of  the  region,  in  which  they  were,  would  go  a  cer- 
tain length  toward  their  support.  This  feature  of  the 
case  has  not  always  received  its  due  share  of  attention. 
The  miracle,  which  must  be  admitted  in  any  event,  is  so 
stupendous  and  long-continued,  that  it  seems  to  be 
scarcely  enhanced  to  an  appreciable  extent  by  leaving  all 
ordinary  supplies  out  of  the  account.  And,  further,  the 
inspired  historian  very  properly  exalts  the  miraculous 
side  of  the  case,  which  was  so  out  of  proportion  to  what 
was  merely  natural,  and  which  was  the  aspect  with  which 
he  was  chiefly  concerned,  to  special  and  almost  exclusive 
prominence.  ]N"ot  that  he  exaggerates  the  miracle,  or 
studiously  conceals  the  other  available  means  of  subsist- 
ence ;  but  he  lays  no  stress  upon  the  latter.  And  hende 
the  hints  and  indications  which  he  does  give  upon  the 
subject  have  so  frequently — perhaps  we  might  say  com- 
monly— been  overlooked;  e.  g.  the  mention  of  date  palms, 
Ex.  XV.  27,  the  nourishment  obtained  from  the  flocks 
which  they  are  said  to  have  had  with  them,  and  the  pur- 
chase of  food  and  drink  for  themselves  and  their  cattle, 
Num.  XX.  19,  Deut.  ii.  6,  28. 

The  tendency  of  late,  among  students  of  this  portion 
of  the  sacred  record,  has,  however,  been  toward  the 
opposite  extreme  of  under-estimating  the  miracle  and 
exalting  unduly  the  natural  resources  of  the  region.  And 
this  for  a  triple  reason ;  first,  the  general  tendency  in  one 
extreme  of  opinion  to  generate  its  opposite ;  secondly, 
the  interest  of  unbelief,  which,  unable  to  rid  itself  of  the 


THE    SHEEP   AND    CATTLE   OF   THE   ISKAELITES.  93 

fact  of  the  exodus,  sought  to  explain  it  upon  a  natural 
basis;  and  thirdly,  the  pardonable  enthusiasm  of  those 
who,  in  their  recent  explorations  of  this  region,  have  added 
so  much  to  our  knowledge  of  its  character,  and  brought  to 
light  so  much  that  was  unexpected,  that  it  is  not  surpris- 
ing if  they  attribute  a  greater  weight  to  their  discoveries 
than  a  cooler  judgment  will  be  disposed  to  allow.  If, 
therefore,  we  wish  to  arrive  at  a  correct  impression  of  the 
real  state  of  the  case,  we  must  carefully  avoid  both 
extremes,  and  diligently  examine  whatever  sources  of 
information  lie  within  our  reach. 

Now,  the  fact  is,  that  while  the  general  features  of  the 
Sinaitic  desert  are,  as  described  in  the  long  pages  of  cita- 
tions made  by  Colenso,  those  of  aridity,  barrenness,  and 
desolation,  there  are,  nevertheless,  exceptions  to  this  in 
verdant  oases  and  fertile  wadys  scattered  here  and  there.* 

*  We  clip  from  the  pages  of  Colenso  the  following  quotations  to  show 
the  possibilities  of  culture  in  this  desert.  The  first  is  taken  from  Stanle^^'s 
Sinai  and  Palestine,  p.  27  of  the  American  edition  : 

"  '  How  much  may  be  done  by  a  careful  use  of  such  water  and  such  soil 
as  the  desert  supplies,  may  be  seen  by  the  only  two  spots,  to  which,  now, 
a  diligent  and  provident  attention  is  paid,  namely,  the  gardens  at  the 
Wells  of  Moses,  under  the  care  of  the  French  and  English  agents  from 
Suez,  and  the  gardens  in  the  valleys  of  Jebel  Musa,  under  the  care  of  the 
Greek  monks  of  the  convent  of  St.  Catherine.  Even  so  late  as  the  seven- 
teenth century,  if  we  may  trust  the  expression  of  Monconys,  the  Wady- 
er-llahah,  in  front  of  the  convent,  now  entirely  bare,  was  "  a  vast  green 
plain,"  une  grande  champagne  verte.''" 

The  quotation  marks  in  the  printed  copy  of  Colenso  are  here  incorrect. 
Stanley  himself  quotes  the  words  "  a  vast  green  plain." 

The  second  is  from  Shaw,  Travels  to  the  Holy  Land,  ch.  ii. : — 

"  '  Though  nothing  that  can  properly  be  called  soil  is  to  be  found  in  these 
parts  of  Arabia,  these  monks  have,  in  a  long  process  of  time,  covered  over 
with  dung  and  the  sweepings  of  their  convent  near  four  acres  of  these 
naked  rocks,  which  produce  as  good  cabbages,  salads,  roots,  and  all  kinds 
of  pot-herbs,  as  any  soil  and  climate  whatsoever.     They  have  likewise 


94  THE   SHEEP   AND   CATTLE   OF   THE   ISRAELITES. 

These  suffice  to  sustain  a  sparse  population  at  the  pre- 
sent day.  The  roving  tribes  which  frequent  the  desert 
are  very  inconsiderable,  it  is  true,  as  compared  with  the 
immense  host  of  the  Israelites  ;  still  they  show  that  the 
region  is  not  absolutely  destitute  of  vegetation.  Ritter,* 
(p.  709,)  after  describing  the  district  in  the  immediate 
vicinity  of  Sinai,  adds: 

"  "We  adduce  these  data  here  just  to  confirm  anew,  what  has  been  so 
often  proved  already,  that  it  is  only  our  ignorance  which  creates  such  great 
deserts,  such  unpeopled  solitudes,  such  void  spaces  in  the  earth;  these  are 
constantly  vanishing  more  and  more  from  the  Sahara  and  the  so-called 
absolute  deserts  of  Arabia  and  Petrea,  as  they  have  done  from  the  midst 
of  the  primeval  forests  of  America  (see  Stevens,  Catherwood,  etc.),  with 
every  serious  advance  of  investigation  into  these  regions." 

But  further,  there  are  abundant  indications  that  this 
desert  once  supported  a  much  larger  population  than  at 
present,  just  as  the  same  is  the  case  with  Palestine  itself; 
and  the  causes  of  this  increased  sterility  in  modern  times 
can,  in  a  measure,  be  pointed  out.  On  this  subject,  we 
may  be  indulged  with  a  somewhat  extended  quotation 
from  Ritter,  pp  926,  927,  the  great  authority  on  all 
questions  of  physical  geography. 

"  "We  have  already,  above,  referred  to  the  former  natural  condition  of 
things  in  this  country,  and  their  relations,  which  must  have  been  essen- 
tially different  in  their  effects  from  those  of  the  present.     So  the  former 

raised  apple,  pear,  plum,  almond,  and  olive  trees,  not  only  in  great  num- 
bers, but  also  of  excellent  kinds.  Their  grasses  also  are  not  inferior,  either 
in  size  or  flavour,  to  any  whatsoever.  Thus  this  little  garden  demonstrates 
how  far  an  indefatigable  industry  may  prevail  over  nature.'  " 

Now  whatever  the  Bishop  may  choose  to  say  about  "  little  gardens," 
"  a  few  favoured  spots,"  "  great  care  and  industry,"  and  "  a  long  process 
of  time,"  such  facts  as  the  above  show  that  the  desolation  is  not  absolute, 
nor  is  it  universall}'-  irredeemable. 

*  This  and  the  following  reference  to  Hitter  have  respect  to  Theil  xiv. 
of  his  Erdkunde,  which  treats  of  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai. 


THE  SHEEP  AND  CATTLE  OF  THE  ISRAELITES.     95 

abundance  of  vegetation,*  especially  in  the  larger  and  more  numerous 
growth  of  trees,  with  the  vanishing  of  which  the  number  of  smaller  plants 
must  diminish  likewise.  So  the  greater  abundance  of  various  articles  of 
food,  of  which  the  people  of  Israel  in  their  time  might  make  use.  So  the 
more  universal  and  thorough  cultivation  of  the  soil,  which  reveals  itself  in 
the  monumental  periods  of  the  most  ancient  Egyptians,  their  mining  ope- 
rations and  settlements,  as  well  as  in  the  Christian  period  by  episcopal 
foundations  and  the  remains,  which  are  scattered  everywhere,  of  cloisters, 
hermitages,  walls,  gardens,  fields,  and  wells.  So  also,  finally,  in  the  possi- 
bility of  a  better  improvement  of  the  temporary  abundance  of  water  in  the 
wadys  as  well  as  of  the  rain,  showers  of  w^hich  are  not  uncommon,  but 
which  could  only  be  preserved  by  industry  and  artificial  means  for  more 
unfruitful  seasons  of  the  year,  as  this  is  the  case  in  other  districts  under 
the  same  parallel  of  latitude. 

"  These  relations,  taken  together  and  supported  by  the  numerous  inscrip- 
tions on  Sinai  and  Serbal,  along  with  those  in  "Wady  Mokatteb  and  in  a 
hundred  other  ravines,  and  those  on  the  tops  of  rocks  and  mountains,  which 
are  at  present  found  in  wild  solitude  and  perfect  neglect,  inscribed  by 
human  hands  in  all  directions  through  the  entire  central  group  of  moun- 
tains, show  that  more  numerous  populations  could  subsist  here,  and  actu- 
ally did  subsist,  even  if  we  did  not  likewise  know  that  before  the  passage 
of  Israel,  four  different  nationalities,  the  sons  of  Amalek,  Midian,  and  Ish- 
mael,  and  on  the  east  the  Edomites,  had  their  seats  here,  and  maintained 
them,  whose  number  we  could  not  estimate  to  be  trifling,  even  if  we  were 
to  reduce  them  to  a  minimum,  and  make  them  to  have  been  of  the  smallest 
dimensions  of  modern  Arab  tribes. 

"  "We  agree,  therefore,  perfectly  with  the  critical  historian  Ewald,  when  he 
says,  that  this  peninsula  could  support  far  more  people  then  than  at  present 
— amidst  great  destitutions,  to  be  sure,  which  are  frequently  spoken  of  in 
the  reminiscences  of  the  people,  and  which  also  served  a  purpose  in  trying 
them ;  but  yet  so  that  their  existence  need  not  have  been  endangered 
thereby.  From  the  trifling  number  of  its  present  negligent  population,  no 
conclusion  surely  can  be  drawn  with  certainty  as  to  its  former  condition, 
any  more  than  this  can  be  done  in  the  case  of  many  other  regions  of  the 
world — e.  g.  Sogdiana,  etc. — which  w^ere  once  in  a  glorious  state  of  culti 
vation,  but  which  are  now,  in  like  manner,  desolated  by  human  indolence." 


*  Under  this  and  each  of  the  particulars  which  follow,  Kitter  refers 
back  to  detailed  descriptions  previously  given  in  his  work,  confirming  and 
elucidating  the  summary  statement  here  made. 


96  THE    SHEEP   AND   CATTLE   OF   THE   ISEAELITE8. 

Colenso  repeats  Stanley's  allusion  in  his  Sinai  and 
Palestine  to  this  very  passage  of  Kitter,  as  containing  a 
good  summing  up  of  the  indications  that  the  mountains 
of  Sinai  were  once  "able  to  furnish  greater  resources 
than  at  present."  And  without  giving  himself  the  trou- 
ble to  look  up  the  passage,  as  it  would  appear,  he  dis- 
misses it  in  the  following  characteristic  and  flippant 
manner.  "  Whatever  they  may  be,  they  cannot  do 
away  with  the  plain  language  of  the  Bible  already  quoted, 
which  shows  that  the  general  character  of  the  desert 
was  as  desolate  and  barren  then  as  now."  "While  pay- 
ing all  due  respect  to  such  an  unwonted  instance  of 
reverence  for  "the  plain  language  of  the  Bible,"  as  to 
adhere  to  it  unshrinkingly,  without  caring  even  to  listen 
to  what  modern  investigation  can  adduce,  we  venture  to 
doubt  whether  its  meaning  is  as  he  alleges. 

The  following  are  the  passages,  with  the  comments, 
italics,  and  all,  which  are  relied  upon  to  prove  that  the 
country  traversed  by  the  Israelites  has  undergone  no 

"  material  change  from  that  time  to  this.  It  is  described  as  being  then 
what  it  is  now,  a  *  desert  land,'  a  'waste  howling  wilderness,'  Deut.  xxxii. 
10.  '  Why  have  ye  brought  up  the  congregation  of  the  Lord  into  this 
wilderness,  that  we  and  our  cattle  should  die  there  ?  And  wherefore  have 
ye  made  us  to  come  up  out  of  Egypt,  to  bring  us  in  unto  this  evil  place? 
It  is  no  place  of  seed,  or  of  figs,  or  of  vines,  or  of  pomegranates ;  neither  is 
there  any  water  to  drink.'  Num.  xx,  4,  5.  From  this  passage  it  appears 
also  that  the  water  from  the  rock  did  not  follow  them,  as  some  have  sup- 
posed. '  Beware  that  thou  forget  not  the  Lord  thy  God  ....  who  led 
thee  through  that  great  and  terrible  wilderness,  wherein  were  fiery  ser- 
pents, and  scorpions,  and  drought,  where  there  was  no  water,''  Deut.  viii.  15. 
'  Neither  said  they,  Where  is  the  Lord  that  brought  us  up  out  of  the  land 
of  Egypt,  that  led  us  through  the  wilderness,  through  a  land  of  deserts  and 
of  pits,  through  a  land  of  drought  and  of  the  shadow  of  deatli,  through  a 
land  that  no  man  passed  through,  and  where  no  man  dwelt?'   Jer.  ii.  6." 

All  this  proves   that  the  region  was  a  desert  then. 


THE   SHEEP   AND   CATTLE   OF   THE   ISRAELITES.  97 

And  it  is  a  desert  now.  But  of  its  comparative  sterility 
then  and  now,  the  text  saj^s  nothing.  No  accumulation 
of  epithets  could  express  too  strongly  how  utterly  inca- 
pable such  a  region  was  without  miraculous  interference 
of  affording  the  needed  supplies  for  so  vast  a  multitude 
during  so  many  years.  But  so  far  from  establishing  an 
absolute  destitution  of  all  vegetation,  the  expressions 
employed  above  prove  rather  the  reverse.  The  original 
word  for  'wilderness'  ^^^^2^  means  properly  2^ctsture' 
land,  a  tract  of  country,  which  is  unfit  for  cultivation, 
but  where  cattle  are  driven;  this  Colenso  appears  to 
have  forgotten  here,  though  he  remembers  it  on  p.  189, 
where  he  has  an  object  to  serve  by  it.  *  Howling ' 
implies  the  presence  of  wild  beasts,  which  of  course  must 
find  something  to  live  upon.  And  it  is  obvious  that  the 
language  of  the  prophet,  '  a  land  that  no  man  passed 
through,  and  where  no  man  dwelt,'  is  simply  intended  as 
a  strong  description  of  the  dreary  and  inhospitable 
nature  of  the  region,  and  not  as  a  categorical  assertion 
that  not  a  single  individual  had  ever  passed  through  it, 
or  dwelt  in  it,  as  Colenso  seems  to  understand  it. 
Because  the  narrative  of  Moses  makes  it  sufficiently  plain 
that  other  persons  had  been  in  it  before,  and  were  in.it 
then. 

Kow  as  to  the  subsistence  of  the  cattle,  from  which  the 
Bishop  draws  his  chief  objection,  what  is  to  prevent  their 
feeding^  in  the  various  wadys  of  the  peninsula  ?  That- 
pasturage  was  to  be  found  in  the  vicinity  of  Sinai  is 
expressly  declared  Ex.  xxxiv.  3,  and  is  implied  in  Moses 
leading  his  father-in-law's  flocks  to  that  very  place,  Ex. 
iii.  1.  Winer,  whom  none  can  charge  with  attaching 
undue  weight  to  the  authority  of  Scripture,  says*  with 

*  Biblisches  Realworterbuch,  vol.  II.  p.  70S.     Art.  Wiisle  Arahisdie. 

5 


98  THE   SHEEP   AND   CATTLE   OF   THE   ISRAELITES. 

an  eye  to  the  evidences  already  reviewed  of  a  higher 
measure  of  fertility  in  this  region  in  former  times  than  at 
present :  "  The  flocks  enjoying  a  change  of  pasture 
could  not  easily  suffer  for  want  of  food." 

But  Colenso  is  not  willing  to  allow  them  this  change 
of  pasture. 

'•  It  cannot  be  supposed,  as  some  have  suggested,  that  the  flocks  and 
herds  were  scattered  far  and  wide,  during  the  sojourn  of  the  people  in  the 
wilderness,  and  so  were  able  the  more  easily  to  find  pasture.  The  story 
says  nothing,  and  implies  nothing,  whatever  of  this ;  but,  as  far  as  it 
proves  anything,  it  proves  the  contrary,  since  we  find  the  whole  body  of 
the  people  together,  on  all  occasions  specified  in  the  history.  If,  indeed, 
they  had  been  so  dispersed,  they  would  surely  have  required  to  be  guarded, 
by  large  bodies  of  armed  men,  from  the  attacks  of  the  Amalekites,  Midian- 
ites,  and  others. 

"  It  seems  to  be  clearly  implied  in  Num.  ix.  17-23  that  they  travelled 
all  together,  and  were  not  separated  into  different  bodies." 

This  is  sheer  trifling.  Moses  does  not  profess  to  give 
any  account  of  the  manner  in  which  the  cattle  were 
driven.  It  might  be  supposed  that  the  cattle  of  the 
patriarchs  were  always  in  the  vicinity  of  their  residence, 
and  yet  we  incidentally  learn  upon  one  occasion  that 
Jacob's  flocks  were  feeding  sixty  miles  from  home,  .Gen. 
xxxvii.  17. 

We  have  no  idea,  however,  that  the  subsistence  of 
Israel's  flocks  in  the  wilderness  is  wholly  explicable 
from  natural  causes,  any  more  than  we  have  that  the 
subsistence  of  the  people  themselves  can  be  so  explained. 
It  is  true  that  nothing  is  expressly  said  of  a  miraculous 
provision  being  made  for  the  flocks  as  was  made  for  the 
people  by  the  gift  of  manna.  But  we  do  not  accept  the 
dictum  that  no  miracles  are  to  be  assumed  but  such  as 
are  expressly  mentioned  in  the  sacred  history.  Our 
Saviour's  public  ministry  abounded  in  miracles,  so  that 


THE   SHEEP   AND   CATTLE   OF   THE   ISRAELITES.  99 

the  evangelist  tells  us  that  the  world  itself  could  not  con- 
tain the  books  which  would  have  to  be  written  to 
describe  them  all,  John  xxi.  25.  And  yet  only  a  few  of 
these  mighty  works  were  narrated  by  way  of  specimen. 

It  was  so  doubtless  at  the  time  of  the  exodus.  A  few 
characteristic  specimens  only  are  related,  while  numbers 
are  left  untold.  The  whole  period  was  one  of  superna- 
tural guidance,  protection,  and  supply,  Deut.  xxxii.  10. 
Divine  interference  to  whatever  extent  the  necessities  of 
Israel's  position  demanded  was  the  rule,  not  the  excep- 
tion. The  idea  that  God  would  provide  by  miracle  for 
the  wants  of  Israel,  even  preserve  their  shoes  and  clothes 
from  waxing  old,  Deut.  xxix.  5,  and  yet  fail  to  supply 
their  cattle  with  what  was  absolutel}^  necessary  for  their 
support,  is  like  Colenso's  idea  that  if  God  arrested  the 
earth's  rotation  at  the  prayer  of  Joshua,  "every  human 
being  and  animal  would  be  dashed  to  pieces  in  a  moment, 
and  a  mighty  deluge  overwhelm  the  earth."     (p.  9.) 

The  fact  that  it  is  not  in  so  many  terms  declared  that 
a  miracle  was  wrought,  is  no  evidence  against  it,  if  state- 
ments are  made  and  facts  recorded,  which  necessarily 
imply  a  miracle.  In  the  narrative  of  raising  Jairus' 
daughter,  it  is  simply  said.  Mat.  ix.  25,  that  Jesus  '  went 
in  and  took  her  by  the  hand  and  the  maid  arose.'  The 
evangelist  does  not  say  that  it  was  a  miracle.  He  simply 
records  the  fact  that  the  dead  was  recovered  by  a  touch, 
and  suffers  his  readers  to  draw  their  own  inferences. 
When  it  is  said  that  Moses  passed  forty  days  and  forty 
nights  without  eating  or  drinking,  Ex.  xxxiv.  28,  and  the 
same  thing  is  likewise  recorded  of  Elijah,  1  Kin.  xix.  8, 
and  of  our  Lord,  Mat.  iv.  2,  must  we  look  to  the  ordinary 
laws  of  physiology  for  an  explanation,  because  the  fact 
is  not  expressly  declared  to  have  been  miraculous  ? 


100        THE    SHEEP    AND   CATTLE   OF   THE   ISRAELITES. 

The  sacred  history  records  that  Israel  took  an  immense 
number  of  flocks  and  herds  into  the  wilderness,  that  they 
were  sustained  there  and  brought  safely  out  again.  Now 
the  more  successful  Colenso  is  in  establishing  that  this 
vast  multitude  of  animals  could  not  have  found  subsist- 
ence by  natural  means,  the  more  clearly  he  proves  that 
there  must  have  been  some  divine  interposition  in  the 
case.  In  what  form  this  interposition  was  manifested 
we  cannot  tell.  All  we  know  is  that  the  events  recorded 
did  take  place ;  and  if  they  could  not  have  occurred 
without  a  miracle,  then  there  must  have  been  a  miracle. 
It  may  have  been  in  the  same  way  that  the  widow's 
handful  of  meal  was  made  to  sustain  her  family  and 
Elijah,  till  God  sent  rain  upon  the  earth,  and  as  the  five 
loaves  and  two  fishes  were  made  to  feed  five  thousand 
men.  Or  it  may  have  been  by  converting  the  wilder- 
ness into  a  fruitful  field,  and  a  dry  land  into  springs  of 
water. 

The  Psalmist  says,  cvii.  35-38,  'He  turneth  the  wil- 
derness into  a  standing  water,  and  dry  ground  into 
water-springs  ;  and  there  he  maketh  the  hungry  to  dwell 
that  they  may  prepare  a  city  for  habitation,  and  sow  the 
fields  and  plant  vineyards,  which  may  yield  fruits  of 
increase.  He  blesseth  them  also,  so  that  they  are  multi- 
plied greatly  ;  and  suffer eih  not  their  cattle  to  decreased 
Like  expressions  occur  also  in  the  prophets,  Isa.  xxxii. 
15,  XXXV.  7,  xli.  18.  In  the  frequency  with  which  the 
sacred  writers  draw  upon  the  past  to  image  forth  the 
future,  is  it  not  more  than  probable  that  in  using  such 
language,  they  bad  before  their  minds  the  great  histori- 
cal example  of  what  they  are  depicting  in  Israel's  march 
through,  the  desert  ?  There  is  nothing  here  certainly  in 
any  view  of  the  subject  to  trouble  any  man  who  is  able 


THE    SHEEP   AND   CAITLE   OF   THE   ISRAELITES.         101 

to  do,  what  the  Bishop  says  he  can,  "  believe  and  receive 
the  miracles  of  Scripture  heartily,  if  only  they  are 
authenticated  by  a  veracious  history,"  p.  51.  And  even 
those  who  can  persuade  themselves  that  the  plagues  of 
Egypt  and  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea  were  simply  won- 
derful conjunctures  of  extraordinary  natural  phenomena 
need  have  little  difficulty,  one  would  think,  in  extending 
these  natural  marvels  a  little  further,  and  conceiving  of 
rain  and  grass  abounding  in  the  desert  at  just  that  time, 
as  it  has  never  done  before  or  since. 

The  Bishop  has  one  more  question  to  raise,  which,  he 
says,  "  is  not  generally  taken  into  consideration  at  all." 
In  fact  we  are  not  sure  that  it  is  not  original  with  him- 
self. ''  They  must  have  passed  the  whole  of  the  winter 
months  under  Sinai  and  must  have  found  it  bitterly  cold." 
Where  then  did  they  find  fuel  ?  We  do  not  know  that 
we  can  do  better  than  to  refer  him  for  information  to  the 
hewers  of  wood,  and  drawers  of  water,  spoken  of  in 
Deut.  xxix.  11.  Perhaps  it  was  where  they  found  the 
timbers  for  the  tabernacle,  Ex.  xxvi.  15 ;  perhaps  it  was 
where  the  man  went  to  gather  sticks  upon  the  Sabbath- 
day,  Kum.  XV.  82  ;  perhaps  the  wood  from  which  the 
modern  Arabs  make  their  charcoal  for  the  Egyptian 
markets  (p.  127),  may  be  a  remnant  of  what  the  Israel- 
ites discovered  and  appropriated. 


CHAPTER  XL 

THE   NUMBER   OF   THE   ISRAELITES  COMPARED  WITH  THE 
EXTENT   OF   THE   LAND   OF   CANAAN. 

The  difficulty  alleged  in  this  cnapter  is  the  following: 

"The  whole  land,  which  was  divided  among  the  tribes  in  the  time  of 
Joshua,  including  the  countries  beyond  the  Jordan,  was  in  extent  about 
11,000  square  miles,  or  7,000,000  acres.  And,  according  to  the  storj,  this 
was  occupied  by  more  than  two  millions  of  people," 

How,  then,  could  God  have  spoken  to  Israel  as  he  is 
said  to  have  done  in  Ex.  xxiii.  29,  80 ?  'I  will  not 
drive  them  [viz.  the  former  occupants  of  the  country] 
out  from  before  thee  in  one  year,  lest  the  land  become 
desolate,  and  the  beast  of  the  field  multiply  against  thee. 
By  little  and  little  I  will  drive  them  out  from  before  thee, 
until  thou  be  increased  and  inherit  the  land.'  To  make 
the  absurdity  of  this  apparent,  a  statement  is  given  from 
the  census  of  1851  of  the  number  of  acres  and  the  amount 
of  population  in  "the  three  English  agricultural  counties 
of  Norfolk,  Suffolk,  and  Essex." 

"  These  counties  of  England  are,  at  this  very  time,  about  as  thickly 
peopled  as  the  land  of  Canaan  would  have  been  with  its  population  of 
Israelites  only,  without  reckoning  the  aboriginal  Canaanites,  who  already 
tilled  the  land."     ''And  surely  it  cannot  be  said  that  those  throe  eastern 


NUMBER  OF  ISRAELITES  AND  EXTENT  OF  CANAAN.       103 

counties,  with  their  flourishing  towns and  their  innumerable  vil- 
lages, are  in  any  danger  of  lying  '  desolate,'  with  the  beasts  of  the  field 
multiplying  against  the  human  inhabitants." 

This  might  pass  for  a  tolerably  clever  sophistical  puz- 
zle; but,  as  an  argument  designed  to  produce  conviction, 
it  is  weak  enough.  The  fallacy  lies  in  a  dexterous  con- 
founding of  the  land  promised  to  Israel  with  the  land 
actually  divided  among  the  tribes  by  Joshua. 

The  territory  granted  to  Israel  may  be  likened  to  the 
early  English  colonies  on  this  continent.  The  part  orig- 
inally settled,  and  from  which  the  aboriginal  inhabitants 
were  first  expelled,  was  a  mere  strip  along  the  sea-coast ; 
while  the  domain  actually  belonging  to  them  was  vastly 
more  extensive,  reaching,  in  the  case  of  Israel,  to  the 
banks  of  the  Euphrates,  as  in  that  of  America  to  the 
shores  of  the  Pacific.  If  an  estimate  were  to  be  made  of 
the  population  which,  the  territory  properly  belonging  to 
the  United  States  is  capable  of  supporting,  Colenso  could 
prove  it  to  the  last  degree  absurd  by  assuming  that  these 
hundreds  of  millions  were  to  be  crowded  upon  the  acres 
of  the  thirteen  states  which  formed  the  American  Union. 

In  fact,  if  he  will  allow  us  a  similar  latitude,  we  can 
prove  some  of  his  own  statements  to  be  entirely  '  unhis- 
torical.'  He  tells  us,  on  page  88,  that  "  the  entire  popu- 
lation of  the  city  of  London  was  2,362,236  by  the  census 
of  1851,"  and  on  page  87,  that  it  is  about  "twelve  miles 
square."  We  suppose  him  to  refer  to  the  vast  metropo- 
lis so  called,  embracing,  in  addition  to  the  city  proper, 
that  immense  aggregation  of  suburbs  which  have  become 
united  with  it.  But  suppose  that  we  deal  with  him  as 
he  has  done  with  Moses,  and  apply  what  he  has  said  of 
London  in  its  widest  extent  to  London  in  its  strict  and 
narrower  sense.     By  the  census  of  1851  the  city  of  Lon- 


104    NUMBER  OF  ISRAELITES  AND  EXTENT  OF  CANAAN. 

don  proper  contained  14,580  inhabited  houses.  Now  if 
these  are  to  hold  the  population,  and  cover  the  space 
which  Colenso  alleges,  we  must  assign  162  occupants  and 
upwards  of  six  acres  of  ground  to  every  house.  Clearly 
there  is  something  wrong,  either  in  the  English  census 
or  in  the  Bishop's  method  of  reasoning. 

We  are  sorry  to  be  compelled  to  add,  that  his  argu- 
ment is  as  dishonest  as  it  is  unsound.  The  verse  next 
succeeding  those  which  he  quotes,  and  upon  which  he 
comments  so  unfairly,  defines  the  territory  of  which  the 
Lord  is  speaking,  Ex.  xxiii.  31,  '  And  I  will  set  thy 
bounds  from  the  Bed  Sea,  even  unto  the  sea  of  the  Phi- 
listines, and  from  the  desert  unto  the  river.'  How  can 
a  man,  with  the  least  regard  for  truth,  or  even  for  his 
own  reputation,  ridicule  a  statement  as  manifestly  false, 
because  it  is  inapplicable  to  the  narrow  tract  extending 
from  the  Mediterranean  to  just  beyond  the  Jordan,  when 
it  is  expressly  declared  to  have  reference  to  the  territory 
bounded  by  the  Eed  Sea  and  -the  desert  on  the  South, 
the  Mediterranean  on  the  West,  and  the  river  Euphrates 
on  the  East? 

Even  if  these  limits  were  never  set  to  the  Holy  Land 
elsewhere,  yet  they  are  in  the  passage  under  considera- 
tion. When  the  declaration  was  made  that  the  former 
inhabitants  should  not  be  driven  out  in  one  year,  lest 
^  the  land  become  desolate,  and  the  beast  of  the  field  mul- 
tiply,' the  extent  of  the  land  referred  to  was  immediately 
defined  to  be  as  has  just  been  stated.  Why  does  the 
Bishop  not  even  allude  to  this  fact,  in  the  course  of  his 
chapter,  but  base  his  whole  argument  on  the  assumption 
that  a  much  more  limited  district  is  the  one  intended  ? 

This  is  the  more  unpardonable,  from  the  fact  that  this 
passage  is  not  alone  in  fixing  these  boundaries  for  the 


NUMBER  OF  ISRAELITES  AND  EXTENT  OF  CANAAN.       105 

promised  land ;  but  that  the  same  limits  are  repeatedly 
assigned  to  it  in  other  places.  Thus  the  original  grant 
to  Abraham  was,  Gren.  xv.  18,  *  Unto  thy  seed  have  I 
given  this  land,  from  the  river  of  Egypt  unto  the  great 
river,  the  river  Euphrates.'  So  Deut.  xi.  24,  '  From  the 
wilderness  and  Lebanon,  from  the  river,  the  river  Eu- 
phrates, even  unto  the  uttermost  sea  [viz.  the  Mediterra- 
nean] shall  your  coast  be.'  Josh.  i.  4,  *  From  the  wil- 
derness and  this  Lebanon  even  unto  the  great  river,  the 
river  Euphrates,  all  the  land  of  the  Hittites,  and  unto  the 
great  sea  toward  the  going  down  of  the  sun,  shall  be 
your  coast.' 

But  further,  the  territory  promised  to  Israel  exceeded 
that  which  was  actually  divided  among  the  tribes  by 
Joshua,  not  only  in  its  breadth  from  East  to  West,  but 
also  in  its  length  from  North  to  South.  Instead  of  reach- 
ing merely  from  Dan  to  Beersheba,  it  was  to  extend  from 
the  river  of  Egypt,  Num.  xxxiv.  5,  or  from  the  Ked  Sea, 
Ex.  xxiii.  31,  to  the  entrance  of  Hamath,  Num.  xxxiv. 
8,  Josh.  xiii.  5.  For  our  present  purpose,  it  is  needless 
to  discuss  the  disputed  and  doubtful  question  of  the  pre- 
cise position  of  this  '  entrance  to  Hamath.'  Whether  we 
find  it  at  the  mouth  of  the  Orontes,  or  in  the  depression 
at  the  northern  end  of  Lebanon,*  or  at  the  city  of  Hamath 
itself,  it  still  marks  no  small  extension  northward. 

Now  although  it  was  not  the  divine  purpose  to  put 
Israel  in  immediate  possession  of  this  extended  territory, 
lest  it  should  '  become  desolate,'  and  although  their  own 
remissness  obstructed  their  complete  possession  even  of 
that  portioii  which  was  at  first  divided  amongst  them, 
yet  they  did  not  forget  the  true  extent  of  their  claim. 

*  So  Robinson,  Later  Biblical  Researches,  pp.  568,  569. 
5* 


106     NUMBER  OF  ISRAELITES  AND  EXTENT  OF  CANAAN. 

And  hence  we  find  David  making  war  upon  Iladad-ezer 
'  as  he  went  to  recover  his  border  at  the  river  Euphrates/ 
2  Sam.  viii.  3.  And  Jeroboam,  the  second  of  the  name,  is 
said,  2  Kin.  xiv.  25,  to  have  ^restored  the  coast  of  Israel 
from  the  entering  of  Hamath  to  the  sea  of  the  plain.'  It 
was,  in  fact,  only  in  the  most  glorious  period  of  the 
Hebrew  State,  in  the  reign  of  Solomon,  that  the  promised 
land,  in  its  divinely-prescribed  limits,  was  really  or  sub- 
stantially reduced  to  Israel's  control.  '  Solomon  reigned 
over  all  kingdoms,  from  the  river  unto  the  land  of  the 
Philistines  and  unto  the  border  of  Egypt,'  1  Kin.  iv.  21, 
2  Chron.  ix.  26.  And  in  his  days  Israel  held  possession 
'from  the  entering  in  of  Hamath  unto  the  river  of  Egypt,' 
1  Kin.  viii.  66,  and  even  of  a  port  upon  the  Red  Sea, 
1  Kin.  ix.  26. 

If  the  Bishop  was  bent  upon  bringing  an  objection 
from  "the  extent  of  the  land  of  Canaan"  at  all  hazards, 
the  fact  just  adverted  to  would  have  supplied  him  with  a 
much  better  one  than  he  has  adduced.  He  might  have 
said,  what  has  in  fact  been  said  by  others,  that  the  boun- 
daries of  the  promised  land,  as  described  in  the  Penta- 
teucl],  are  not  those  belonging  to  the  days  of  Moses  and 
Joshua,  but  those  of  the  days  of  Solomon.  Now  as  a 
map  of  the  United  States,  which  should  include  Texas, 
must  have  been  prepared  after  the  annexation  of  that 
state,  so,  it  might  be  urged,  a  description  of  the  bounda- 
ries of  the  land  of  Israel,  as  they  were  in  the  days  of 
Solomon,  could  not  have  been  written  prior  to  his  reign ; 
and  the  existence  of  such  a  description,  in  writings 
ascribed  to  Moses,  involves  an  anachronism  which  proves 
their  spuriousness.  This  objection  would  have  had  a 
double  advantage  over  the  one  which  the  Bishop  has 
actually  brought  forward.     In  the  first  place,  he  would 


NmiBER  OF  ISRAELITES  AND  EXTENT  OF  C  A  AN  AN.       107 

have  escaped  the  necessity  of  a  dishonest  concealment  of 
the  facts ;  and  in  the  second  place,  his  objection  would 
have  been  of  some  force  from  his  rationalistic  point  of 
view. 

To  be  sure,  this  objection  would  not,  after  all,  be  con- 
clusive ;  but  that  is  a  difficulty  arising  out  of  the  nature 
of  things,  and  which  those,  who  advocate  the  wrong  side 
of  a  question,  must  make  up  their  minds  to  experience. 
It  would  remain  to  be  proved,  that  God,  who  sees  the 
end  from  the  beginning,  could  not  make  a  promise  to 
Abraham  and  to  Moses,  which  he  would  fulfil  to  Solo- 
mon.     And   further,    there   is  just   enough   difference 
between  the  ideal  and  the  actual  boundaries  of  Israel, 
the  promise  and  its  fulfilment,  while  justifying  the  sub- 
stantial truth  of  the  former,  to  prove  that  it  is  not  merely 
an  antedated  copy  of  the  latter,  a  vaticinium  ex    eveniu. 
David  and  Solomon  were  at  peace  with  the  Sidonians, 
and  entertained  no  thought  of  their  conquest,  1  Kin.  v. 
1,  6,  12.      On  the  other   hand,    David  subdued  Moab, 
2  Sam.  viii.  2,  Amnion,  ver.  12,  and  Edom,  ver.  14.     It 
is  impossible  that  a  sketch  of  Israel's  boundaries,  dating 
from  that  period,  could  have  excluded  Moab,  Ammon, 
and  Edom,  Deut.  ii.  5,  9,  19,  and  included  the  Sidonians, 
Judg.  iii.  3;  while  it  is  quite  natural  that  the  altered  cir- 
cumstances of  the  time  should  have  modified  tbe  limits 
prescribed  ages  before. 

There  is  no  escaping  the  conclusion,  therefore,  that 
limits  were  promised  to  the  people  under  Moses  and 
Joshua  greater  than  they  were  enabled  or  permitted  to 
occupy  at  that  period,  but  which  with  unessential  modi- 
fications, arising  out  of  the  subsequent  course  of  events, 
they  did  occupy  in  the  time  of  Solomon.  The  divine 
declaration,  at  which  Colenso  cavils,  is  thus  abundantly 


108     NUMBER  OF  ISRAELITES  AND  EXTENT  OF  CANAAN. 

verified.  The  fact  is  established  beyond  question,  that 
the  hostile  nations  were  driven  out  by  little  and  little, 
until  Israel  was  increased  and  inherited  the  land ;  and 
that  the  promise  of  this  result  was  given  long  before  its 
actual  accomplishment. 

But  Colenso  might  still  object,  that  even  within  these 
enlarged  boundaries  two  millions  of  people  could  have" 
prevented  the  multiplication  of  wild  beasts. 

"  The  colony  of  Natal  has  an  extent  of  18,000  square  miles,  and  a  popu- 
lation, white  and  black  included,  probably  not  exceeding  150,000  alto- 
gether. This  population  is,  of  course,  very  scanty,  and  the  land  will  allow 
of  a  much  larger  one.  Yet  the  human  inliabitants  are  perfectly  well  able 
to  maintain  their  ground  against  the  beasts  of  the  field.'" 

We  do  not  know  how  it  is  at  Natal,  though  the  Bishop 
admits  the  existence  of  "leopards,  wild  boars,  hyaenas, 
and  jackals,"  within  the  limits  of  his  spiritual  jurisdiction. 
We  see  it  stated,  however,  in  McCuUoch's  Universal 
Gazetteer,  that  the  area  of  the  province  of  Bengal  is 
82,700  square  miles,  and  its  population  in  1822  was 
24,887,000.  This  yields  a  proportion  of  800  to  the 
square  mile,  and  is  almost  twice  as  densely  peopled  as 
the  Bishop's  own  estimate  makes  Palestine  to  have  been, 
and  fully  fifteen  times  more  so  than  it  would  have  been 
if  Israel  had  at  once  taken  possession  of  it  up  to  the 
full  limits  of  the  promise.     McCulloch  farther  tells  us — 

"  Tigers  infest  the  jungles ;  and  these  with  elephants,  buffaloes,  gyals, 
wild  deer,  and  boars,  jackals,  apes  of  many  kinds,  etc.,  are  natives  of  Ben- 
gal   Crocodiles  and  gavials  in  the  large  rivers ;  the  cobra-di-capello 

and  other  formidable  serpents,  etc." 

Is  McCulloch  '  unhistorical '  too,  or  is  the  argument 
valid  only  when  applied  to  Moses  ? 


NUMBER  OF  ISRAELITES  AND  EXTENT  OF  CANAAN.     109 

The  territory  between  the  Jordan  and  the  Euphrates, 
though  spacious  enough  and  productive  enough  to  sus- 
tain several  Syrian  kingdoms  in  the  days  of  David,  was 
yet  partly  a  wilderness,  fitted  chiefly  for  pasturage.  The 
Bishop's  figures  are,  therefore,  deceptive  for  the  addi- 
tional reason  that  the  inhabitants  would  not  be  uniformly 
distributed  throughout ;  but  while  some  parts  of  the  land 
might  be  densely  settled,  other  portions  would  contain  a 
much  more  scanty  population.  The  flocks  of  roving 
shepherds  might  be  liable  to  the  incursions  of  wild 
beasts,  if  the  walled  towns  and  cultivated  farms  were 
not. 

And  that  this  was  not  wholly  an  imaginary  danger, 
appears  from  the  frequent  mention  of  wild  animals  in 
the  sacred  history,  as  the  lion  which  encountered  Sam- 
son in  the  vineyards  of  Timnath,  Judg.  xiv.  5 ;  the  lion 
and  the  bear  which  attacked  the  sheep  of  Jesse,  1  Sam. 
xvii.  34 ;  the  lion  slain  by  one  of  David's  champions, 
2  Sam.  xxiii.  20,  and  that  which  slew  the  unfaithful  pro- 
phet, 1  Kin.  xiii.  24  ;  the  bears,  which  tore  in  pieces  the 
mocking  children,  2  Kin.  ii.  24  ;  the  lions  sent  among  the 
heathen  colonists  planted  in  Samaria,  2  Kin.  xviii.  25  ;  and 
those  which  infested  '  the  swelling '  of  Jordan,  even  so  late 
as  the  days  of  Jeremiah,  xlix.  19,  1.  44,  not  to  speak  of 
the  period  subsequent  to  the  captivity,  Zech.  xi.  3.  Even 
though  every  one  of  these  incidents  were  dismissed  as 
fabulous,  the  fact  would  remain;  for  such  fables  could 
not  have  arisen,  nor  could  images  drawn  from  these  ani- 
mals be  so  frequent  in  the  prophets,  and  in  the  poetry  of 
the  bible,  if  they  were  not  familiar  in  real  life.  Colenso 
may  never  have  seen  them  in  Natal,  but  they  must  have 
found  their  way  into  Palestine  for  all  that. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE    NUMBER    OF    FIRST-BORNS    COMPARED    WITH     THE 
NUMBER  OF  MALE  ADULTS. 

It  is  Stated  Num.  iii.  43,  that  "  all  the  first  born  males 
from  a  month  old  and  upwards"  were  22,273.  As  there 
were  600,000  males  of  twenty  years  and  upwards,  there 
must  have  been  900,000  or  1,000,000  males  in  all,  and  con- 
sequently but  one  first-born  to  forty  or  forty-four  males. 

"  So  that,  according  to  the  story  in  the  Pentateuch,  every  mother  in 
Israel  must  have  had  on  the  average  forty-two  sonsl" 

Again,  if  it  be  supposed  that  one-fourth  of  the  first- 
borns had  died  before  the  numbering  took  place,  and 
there  were  as  many  first-born  females  as  males, 

"  there  would  then  have  been,  if  all  had  lived,  about  60,000.  But  even 
this  number  of  first-borns  for  a  population  of  1,800,000  would  imply  that 
each  mother  had  on  the  average  thirty  children,  fifteen  sons  and  fifteen 
daughters.  Besides  which,  the  number  of  mothers  must  have  been  the 
same  as  that  of  the  first-borns,  male  and  female,  including  also  any  that 
had  died.  Hence  there  would  have  been  only  60,000  child-bearing 
women  to  600,000  men,  so  that  only  about  one  man  in  ten  had  a  wife  or 
children  1" 

These  results  are  manifestly  insupposable.  But  what 
is  the  conclusion,  that  Moses  has  blundered,  or  that  his 


THE   NUMBER   OF   FIRST-BORNS,  ETC.  Ill 

antagonist  has  mistaken  his  meaning  ?  The  latter  antici- 
pates (p.  148),  that  "by  this  time,  surely,  great  doubt 
must  have  arisen  in  the  mind  of  most  readers,  as  to  the 
historical  veracity  of  sundry  portions  of  the  Pentateuch." 
As  we  have  seen  no  cause  to  entertain  any  doubts  of  this 
sort  as  yet,  while  we  have  seen  cause  enough  to  doubt 
the  infallibility  of  the  Bishop,  we  are  not  prepared  to  dis- 
card the  Hebrew  legislator  without  inquiring  a  little  fur- 
ther. We  would  not  be  willing  to  fasten  such  absurd 
conclusions  as  the  Bishop  draws,  upon  even  a  respecta- 
ble writer  of  romance.  His  argument  proves,  what  had 
been  proved  and  confessed  long  before  he  was  born,  that 
there  must  be  some  mistake  about  the  assumption  that 
all  the  first-born  males  of  the  nation  are  reckoned  in  this 
enumeration.  Moses,  it  is  true,  was  directed  to  number 
all  the  first-born  from  a  month  old  and  upwards.  But 
this  must  have  been  subject  to  some  tacit  limitation  ;  and 
the  difficulty  is,  in  the  absence  of  sufficient  data,  to  deter- 
mine what  the  nature  and  the  ground  of  that  limitation 
was. 

There  is  some  little  doubt  in  the  outset  as  to  what 
would  entitle  a  child  to  be  called  the  first-born.  If  a 
man  had  children  by  several  wives,  for  example,  would 
he  have  one  first-born,  or  more  than  one  in  his  family  ? 
Upon  the  one  side  it  is  argued,  that  Jacob,  Gen.  xlix.  3, 
calls  Reuben  his  first-born,  as  though  there  were  but  one 
entitled  to  that  distinction,  notwithstanding  the  fact, 
that  children  were  born  to  him  by  four  different  mothers. 
Also  when  Reuben  forfeited  his  right  of  primogeniture, 
this  was  devolved  upon  Joseph,  1  Chr.  v.  1,  as  though 
that  right  could  belong  to  but  one  in  the  family.  So 
Deut.  xxi.  15,  in  the  case  of  a  man  having  children 
by  two  wives,  the  one  born  first  of  all  is  declared  to  be 


112  THE   NUMBER   OF   FIRST-BORNS 

the  first-born.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  urged  from  the 
form  of  expression  used  in  the  law  of  consecration, 
Ex.  xiii.  2,  12,  15,  that  the  first-born  of  every  mother  is 
here  contemplated.  The  fact  appears  to  have  been  that 
the  paternal  first-born  was  entitled  to  a  double  share  of 
the  inheritance  ;  but  the  consecration  attached  to  the 
maternal  first-born.  The  assumption  of  the  prevalence 
of  polygamy,  therefore,  even  if  there  were  any  reliable 
grounds  on  which  to  base  it,  would  rather  complicate 
than  relieve  the  matter. 

There  are  three  difierent  opinions  of  greater  or  less 
plausibility  as  to  the  limitation  to  be  put  upon  the  enu- 
meration of  the  first-born.  The  first  is  the  very  obvious 
one,  that  only  those  were  to  be  reckoned,  who  were  not 
themselves  parents  or  heads  of  families.  By  the  fact  of 
their  marriage  they  are  withdrawn  from  the  family  to 
which  they  previously  belonged,  and  form  a  new  family 
of  their  own.  They  are  accordingly  regarded  not  in  their 
former  but  in  their  present  relation,  not  as  the  first-born 
of  their  fathers'  families,  but  as  the  heads  of  their  own. 
Kurtz,  who  adopts  this  view  of  the  case,  argues  that 
marriages  in  the  East  take  place  on  an  average  as  early 
as  the  fifteenth  or  sixteenth  year.  With  a  population  of 
600,000  males  over  twenty  years  of  age,  there  would 
probably  be  200,000  under  fifteen  ;  this  would  make  one 
first-born  for  every  nine  males.  Or,  allowing  that  the 
number  of  females  was  equal  to  that  of  the  males,  there 
would  be  in  400,000  young  people,  44,546  first-born,  or 
one  in  every  nine.  This  requires  the  assumption  that 
there  were  nine  children  on  an  average  in  every  Israelitish 
family.  This  is  a  large  number,  it  is  true,  but  perhaps 
not  too  great  considering  how  prolific  the  Israelites  are 
said  to  have  been    Ex.  i.  7,  12,  20.     This  computation, 


COMPARED  WITH  THE  NUMBER  OF  MALE  ADULTS.        113 

the  Bishop,  fond  as  he  is  of  figures  when  put  bj  himself, 
omits,  though  professing  to  answer  Kurtz's  argument. 

A  second  opinion  is  that  of  Baumgarten,  and  is  based 
upon  the  redemption-money  required  of  the  supernume- 
raries. The  22,000  of  the  tribe  of  Levi  were  accepted  in 
lieu  of  an  equal  number  of  the  first-born  in  the  other 
tribes.  But  for  the  redemption  of  the  remaining  273, 
five  shekels  apiece  were  to  be  paid,  Num.  iii.  46,  47. 
This,  according  to  Lev.  xxvii.  6,  was  the  amount  fixed 
for  the  redemption  of  males  "  from  a  month  old  even 
unto  five  years  old."  Whence  it  appears  to  be  not  an 
unfair  inference,  that  this  was  the  limit  of  the  ages  of  the 
first-born  who  were  intended  to  be  reckoned.  The 
various  stages  of  human  life,  as  they  are  defined  in  this 
chapter  of  Leviticus,  are  under  five  years,  between  five 
and  twenty,  between  twenty  and  sixty,  and  over  sixty. 
It  may  have  been  understood  that  this  enumeration  was 
to  be  confined  to  the  first  stage  of  early  childhood.  If 
the  fact  be,  as  Bunsen  alleges,  that  the  surrounding 
heathen  were  in  the  habit  of  devoting  their  children  to 
their  idols  when  about  this  age,  this  is  a  coincidence 
which  should  not  be  overlooked.  There  might  also  be 
some  historical  reason  for  this  limitation  of  which  we  are 
ignorant ;  as  for  example,  it  might  have  been  five  years 
since  Moses  was  first  sent  to  renew  their  covenant  with 
God,  and  to  prepare  the  way  for  their  redemption,  and 
the  children  born  from  that  time  onward  might  be  claimed 
as  holy  unto  the  Lord. 

A  third  opinion  is  perhaps  more  prevalent  than  either 
of  the  other  two.  It  is  that  the  law  was  not  designed  to 
be  retro-active;  but  given  as  it  was  thirteen  months 
before,  at  the  time  of  instituting  the  passover  on  the  eve 
of  leaving  Egypt,  Ex.  xiii.  2,  12-15,  it  has  relation  only 


114  THE   NUMBER   OF   FIKST-BORNS 

to  those  who  were  subsequently  born.  This  is  inferred 
still  further  from  Num.  iii.  13,  viii.  17,  '  on  the  day  that  I 
smote  all  the  first-born  in  the  land  of  Egypt ;  I  hallowed 
unto  me  all  the  first-born  in  Israel.'  Thus  Scott  as  quoted 
by  Colenso : 

"  Upon  reflection,  we  shall  find  it  to  be  by  no  means  improbable  that 
among  1,200,000  persons  of  both  sexes,  who  were  above  twenty  years  of 
age  (and  many  might  marry  much  younger  than  that  age)  there  should  be 
within  that  time  [and,  he  might  have  added,  the  preceding  year]  50,000 
marriages ;  that  is,  about  the  twelfth  part  of  the  company  of  marriageable 
persona  of  each  sex.  Especially,  if  we  consider  that  multitudes  might  be 
inclined  to  marry,  when  they  found  that  they  were  about  to  enjoy  liberty ; 
and  when  they  recollected  that  the  promises  made  to  Israel  peculiarly 
respected  a  very  rapid  increase,  and  that  there  would  doubtless  be  a  very 
great  blessing  upon  them  in  this  respect." 

Kow,  in  our  judgment,  it  would  be  a  thousand-fold 
more  reasonable  to  adopt  any  one  of  these  explanations, 
than  to  suppose  that  either  Moses  or  any  other  respectable 
writer  would  commit  a  blander  so  gross  as  to  assign 
forty-two  sons  to  every  mother  in  Israel,  or  to  allow  a 
wife  and  children  to  only  one  man  in  ten.  If  the  Pen- 
tateuch were  purely  a  fiction,  we  would  expect  more 
attention  than  this  to  the  jDrobabilities  of  the  case,  unless 
the  writer  of  it  was  destitute  of  sense.  The  difficulty  in 
the  matter  consists,  as  before  stated,  not  in  finding  pos- 
sible and  plausible  solutions,  but  in  deciding  in  the 
absence  of  sufficient  data  which  of  these  is  the  true  one. 

Colenso  addresses  himself  to  our  ignorance  when  he 
alleges  that  no  limitation  in  the  ages  of  the  first-born 
can  be  admitted,  because  none  is  expressly  stated,  and 
that  as  the  Levites  of  all  ages  were  to  be  numbered,  so 
must  the  first-born  be  for  whom  they  w^ere  to  be  substi- 
tuted. Because  we  do  not  know  what  the  limitation 
was,   therefore  there  could  be  none,  though   the   facts 


oompaeeJ)  ^yTra  the  number  of  male  adults.     115 

imperatively  require  it.  If  an  agent  of  the  Sunday 
School  Union  were  to  say  in  a  public  address  that  there 
were  so  many  children  in  a  given  State  or  locality,  he 
might,  perhaps,  intend  to  state  the  entire  number  of  chil- 
dren of  all  ages,  or  he  might  mean  all  the  children  w^ho 
were  of  an  age  to  attend  Sunday  School.  And  if  from 
statistics  we  found  that  the  former  could  not  be  his 
meaning,  we  would  not  charge  him  with  misrepresenta- 
tion or  with  error  for  not  having  expressly  mentioned  a 
limitation,  which  he  might  suppose  would  be  understood 
by  his  hearers.  It  is  to  set  aside  the  very  first  principles 
of  interpretation  to  say  (p.  145)  "  the  Hebrew  usage  has 
nothing  to  do  with  the  present  question.  We  are  here 
only  concerned  with  all  the  first-born."  Hebrew  usage 
has  every  thing  to  do  with  it.  What  we  are  concerned 
to  know  is  precisely  who  were  reckoned  the  first-born 
according  to  that  usage  and  in  the  intent  of  the  law 
requiring  their  consecration. 

Much  as  such  an  acknowledgment  would  provoke  the 
Bishop's  scorn,  we  confess  to  such  confidence  in  Moses 
and  such  reverence  for  his  word,  that  even  if  these  solu- 
tions should  be  proved  to  be  impossible,  which  has  never 
been  done  and  cannot  be  done,  we  would  still  believe 
that  there  must  be  some  other  solution,  though  it  has 
never  yet  been  discovered.  We  heartily  approve  of  the 
sentiment,  which,  as  we  had  occasion  to  remark  once 
before,  the  Bishop  quotes  with  approbation  (p.  16). 

"  "We  should  be  very  scrupulous  about  assuming  that  it  is  impossible  to 
explain  satisfactorily  this  or  that  apparent  inconsistency,  contradiction,  or 
other  anomaly considering  that  ours  is  an  ex  parte  state- 
ment, and  incapable  of  being  submitted  to  the  party  against  whom  it  is 
made." 

In  fact,  sooner  than  charge  the  author  of  the  Penta- 


116  THE   NUMBER   OF   FIRST-BORNS. 

teuch  with  the  absurdities  which  the  Bishop,  in  the  face 
of  his  own  maxim,  labours  to  fasten  upon  him,  we  would 
resort  to  the  supposition  that  some  transcriber,  in  the 
long  period  which  has  elapsed  since  the  days  of  Moses, 
made  an  error  in  the  figures.  And  we  are  confirmed  in 
the  view  which  we  take  of  the  matter  by  a  curious  cir- 
cumstance in  connection  with  this  very  enumeration 
which  we  are  now  considering.  The  Levites,  who  were 
accepted  as  substitutes  for  the  first-born  of  the  other 
tribes,  were  numbered  at  the  same  time.  The  census  of 
each  of  the  three  Levitical  families  is  first  given,  viz.  the 
Gershonites  7,500,  ver.  22,  the  Kohathites  8,600,  ver.  28, 
the  Merarites  6,200,  ver.  34 ;  then  these  are  summed  up 
and  the  number  of  the  whole  tribe  stated  to  be  22,000, 
ver.  39.  The  true  total  is  22,300,  leaving  a  discrepancy 
of  300  to  be  accounted  for. 

The  Bishop  may  conclude  from  this  that  Moses  was 
ignorant  of  the  simplest  rules  of  arithmetic.  But  few, 
we  presume,  will  be  disposed  to  follow  him  in  doing  so. 
Other  inquirers  have  hit  upon  two  solutions.  One  is 
that  there  is  a  mistake  in  the  number  through  some  error 
of  transcription ;  and  if  this  could  take  place  in  one 
instance,  why  not  in  another?  A  second  solution  is, 
that  the  300  omitted  in  the  final  summation  were  the 
first-born  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  who  by  the  law  were 
already  consecrated  themselves,  and  therefore  could  not 
stand  as  substitutes  for  the  first-born  in  the  other  tribes. 
If  this  be  so,  300  first-born  in  a  tribe  numbering  22,000 
from  a  month  old  and  upward,  is  a  smaller  proportion 
still  than  22,273  in  900,000  or  1,000,000 ;  and  then  we 
have  here  a  fresh  proof  that  there  must  have  been  some 
limitation  of  age  in  computing  the  first-born. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE   SOJOURNING  OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN    EGYPT. 

Ex.  xii.  40.  *  Now  the  sojourning  of  the  children  of 
Israel  who  dwelt  in  Egypt,  was  four  hundred  and  thirty 
years.* 

These  words  have  been  differently  understood  from 
very  early  times.  The  first  impression,  and  that  most 
naturally  derived  from  them,  is,  that  the  children  of 
Israel  spent  four  hundred  and  thirty  years  in  Egypt. 
Another  very  ancient  interpretation,  however,  includes 
the  migrations  of  their  ancestors  in  Canaan  as  well  as 
the  abode  in  Egypt,  in  the  period  here  given.  As  our 
author  correctly  informs  us  : — 

"  The  Vatican  copy  of  the  LXX  renders  the  passage  thus :  '  The 
sojourning  of  the  children  of  Israel,  which  they  sojourned  in  Egypt  and  in 
the  land  of  Canaan^  was  430  years.'  The  Alexandrian  has,  '  The  sojouni- 
ing  of  the  children  of  Israel,  which  they  and  their  fathers  sojourned  in 
Egypt  and  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  was  430  years.*  The  Samaritan  has, 
'  The  sojourning  of  the  children  of  Israel  and  of  their  fathers,  which  they 
sojourned  in  the  land  of  Canaan  and  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  was  430  years.'  " 

The  gloss  thus  put  upon  this  passage  in  Exodus,  as  it 
seemed  to  have  the  authority  of  an  inspired  apostle  in  its 
favour  in  Gal.  iii.  17,  and  as  the  genealogy  of  Moses, 
Ex.  vi.  16-20,  appeared  to  preclude  the  supposition  that 
430  years  were  spent  in  Egypt,  became  the  accepted  and 


118      THE    SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT. 

well  nigh  universal  view  of  the  case.  It  still  has  its 
advocates,  though  the  leading  biblical  scholars  of  Europe 
have  abandoned  it. 

It  is  so  rare  a  thing  to  find  Colenso  standing  fast  by 
current  and  traditional  opinions,  that  we  are  sorry  to 
disturb  his  repose  in  the  present  instance.  But,  in  foct, 
his  concession  to  received  views  is  from  no  lingering 
attachment  to  his  ancient  faith.  If  the  430  years  em- 
braced the  peregrinations  in  Canaan  as  well  as  the  abode 
in  Egypt,  only  210  or  215  years  will  remain  for  the  lat- 
ter ;  and  then,  as  the  Bishop  proposes  to  show,  (p.  148,) 
"  the  children  of  Israel,  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  could 
not  have  amounted  to  two  millions, — in  fact,  the  whole 
body  of  warriors  could  not  have  been  two  thousand." 
A  concession,  made  with  such  a  view  as  this,  may  well 
provoke  examination. 

The  Bishop  tells  us  at  the  outset  that  the  original 
words  in  this  passage  in  Exodus — 

"would  be  more  naturally  translated  (as  in  the  Yuigate,  Chaldee,  Syriae, 
and  Arabic  Versions)  'the  sojourning  of  the  children  of  Israel,  which  they 
sojourned  in  Egypt'  but  for  the  serious  difficulties  which  would  thus  arise." 

The  most  serious  difficulty,  we  apprehend,  and  that 
which  was  most  influential  with  him,  was  that  if  he 
accepted  this  obvious  sense  of  the  words,  his  opportunity 
to  cavil  at  the  immense  multiplication  of  the  children  of 
Israel  would  be  cut  off. 

But  what  are  "the  serious  difficulties"  which  he 
alleges  ? 

"  In  the  first  place,  St.  Paul,  referring  to  '  the  covenant,  that  was  con- 
firmed before  of  God'  unto  Abraham,  says  'the  law,'  which  was/oMr  hun- 
dred and  thirty  years  after,  cannot  disannul  it,'  Gal.  iii.  17.  It  is  plain, 
then,  that  St.  Paul  dates  the  beginning  of  the  four  hundred  and  thirty 
years,  not  from  the  going  down  into  Egypt,  but  from  the  time  of  the  pro- 
mise made  to  Abraham." 


THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT.     119 

We  cannot  help  remarking  upon  the  readiness  here 
manifested  to  defer  to  the  authority  of  an  apostle  as  con- 
clusive of  the  meaning  of  a  passage  in  Exodus,  when  a 
few  pages  later  he  will  not  allow  the  like  interference  of 
another  inspired  writer  in  a  similar  instance.  When  a 
passage  is  adduced  from  Chronicles,  which  upsets  a 
theory  of  his  regarding  certain  statements  of  the  Penta- 
teuch, his  reply  is,  (p.  157) — 

""We  are  not  here  concerned  with  the  books  of  Chronicles  ....  but 
with  the  narrative  in  the  Pentateuch  itself  and  book  of  Joshua,  and  must 
abide  by  the  data  which  they  furnish." 

We  remember,  however,  that  circumstances  alter  cases. 
We  should  not  expect  so  good  a  reasoner  as  Colenso  to 
be  consistent.  It  is  convenient  to  admit  the  testimony 
of  inspiration  this  time,  but  it  may  not  be  agreeable  to  do 
it  always. 

This  language  of  the  apostle,  however,  does  not  appear 
to  us  to  be  decisive  of  the  point  at  issue.  The  interval 
of  time  is  only  incidentally  mentioned.  Precision  of 
statement  regarding  it  was  of  no  consequence  to  his  argu- 
ment. An  opinion  existed,  and  prevailed  more  or  less 
widely,  that  it  was  but  430  years  from  the  promise  made 
to  Abraham  to  the  Exodus.  It  would  not  serve  his  pre- 
sent purpose  to  argue  this  point,  or  to  make  a  categorical 
revelation  respecting  it.  Enough  was  conceded  on  all 
hands  to  answer  the  end  at  which  he  was  aiming.  The 
interval  was  430  years  at  least,  as  all  confessed  :  whether 
it  was  more  than  this,  he  does  not  say,  but  leaves  us  to 
ascertain  from  other  sources. 

The  evidence  is,  we  think,  conclusive,  that  the  abode 
in  Egypt  lasted  430  years.  This  is  the  natural  sense  of 
Ex.  xii.  40,  and  none  would  ever  think  of  extracting  a 


120      THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISEAELITES   IN   EGYPT. 

diflferent  meaning  from  it,  but  for  reasons  found  outside 
of  the  verse  itself  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  were  not 
'  children  of  Israel,'  that  their  sojourning  should  be 
included ;  and  the  verse  makes  no  allusion  to  Canaan, 
but  only  to  Egypt.  It  was  also  revealed  to  Abraham, 
Gen.  XV.  13,  etc.,  that  his  seed  should  'be  a  stranger  in 
a  land  that  is  not  theirs^  and  shall  serve  them,  and  they 

shall  afflict  them  four  hundred  years but  in  the 

fourth  generation  they  shall  come  hither  again.'  The 
abode  of  fhe  patriarchs  in  the  land  already  promised  to 
them  is  here  positively  excluded.  They  were  to  be 
strangers  for  four  hundred  years  in  a  land  not  their  own, 
and  where  they  would  be  reduced  to  bondage,  and  suffer 
affliction.  That  this  was  not  to  take  place  until  after 
Abraham's  decease,  appears  from  the  contrast  in  ver.  15, 
*  and  thou  shalt  go  to  thy  fathers  in  peace ;  thou  shalt  be 
buried  in  a  good  old  age.' 

The  prediction  gives  as  the  term  of  this  foreign  resi- 
dence the  round  number  400  years :  the  record  of  the 
fulfilment  states  it  with  precision  430.  Colenso  himself 
yields  the  point,  when  he  says,  (p.  155,)  that  the  fourth 
generation  here  spoken  of  can  only  be  reckoned  "  from 
the  time  when  they  should  leave  the  land  of  Canaan  and 
go  down  into  Egypt."  The  generation  meant  is  a  cen- 
tury, and  '  the  fourth  generation '  is  a  repetition  in  other 
terms  of  the  '  four  hundred  years.' 

The  Bishop  is  able  to  find  but  one  other  "  serious  diffi- 
culty." This  is  the  genealogy  of  Moses  and  Aaron  in 
the  sixth  chapter  of  Exodus  : 

Ver.  16.  '  And  these  are  the  names  of  the  sons  of  Levi, 
according  to  their  generations;  Gershon,  and  Kohath, 
and  Merari.  And  the  years  of  the  life  of  Levi  were  an 
hundred  thirty  and  seven  years. 


THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAi:LrrES   IN   EGYPT.     121 

17.  '  The  sons  of  Gershon  .... 

18.  'And  the  sons  of  Kohath;  Amram,  and  Izhar, 
and  Hebron,  and  Uzziel ;  and  the  years  of  the  life  of 
Kohath  were  an  hundred  and  thirty  and  three  years. 

19.  '  And  the  sons  of  Merari  .... 

20.  '  And  Amram  took  him  Jochebed  his  father's  sis- 
ter to  wife  ;  and  she  bare  him  Aaron  and  Moses.  And 
the  years  of  the  life  of  Amram  were  an  hundred  and 
thirty  and  seven  years. 

21.  '■  And  the  sons  of  Izhar 

22.  '  And  the  sons  of  Uzziel ' 

Upon  this  he  makes  the  following  remarks : — 

••  Now  supposing  that  Kohath  was  only  an  infant,  when  brought  down 
by  his  father  to  Egypt  with  Jacob,  Gen.  xlvi.  11,  and  that  he  begat 
Amram  at  the  very  end  of  his  life,  when  133  years  old,  and  that  Amram, 
in  like  manner,  begat  Moses,  when  he  was  137  years  old,  still  these  two 
numbers  added  to  80  years,  the  age  of  Moses  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus, 
Ex.  vii.  V,  would  only  amount  to  350  years,  instead  of  430. 

"  Once  more,  it  is  stated  in  the  above  passage,  that  '  Amram  took  him 
Jochebed  his  father's  sister,' — Kohath's  sister,  and  therefore  Levi's 
daughter, — '  to  wife.'  And  so  also  we  read  Num.  xxvi.  59 :  *  The  name 
of  Amram's  wife  was  Jochebed,  the  daughter  of  Levi,  wliom  her  moilier  bare 
to  him  in  Egypt.^ 

"  Now  Levi  was  one  year  older  than  Judah,  and  was  therefore  43  years 
old  when  he  went  down  with  Jacob  into  Egypt ;  and  we  are  told  above, 
that  he  was  137  years  old,  when  he  died.  Levi,  therefore,  must  have  lived* 
according  to  the  story,  94  years  in  Egypt.  Making  here  again  the  extreme 
supposition  of  his  begetting  Jochebed  in  the  last  year  of  his  life,  she  may 
have  been  an  infant  94  years  after  the  migration  of  Jacob  and  his  sons 
into  Egypt.  Hence  it  follows  that,  if  the  sojourn  in  Egypt  was  430  years, 
Moses,  who  was  80  years  old  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus,  must  have  been 
born  350  years  after  the  migration  into  Egypt,  when  his  mother,  even  at 
the  above  extravagant  supposition,  must  have  been  at  the  very  least  256 
years  old." 

Very  well.  But  how  does  this  genealogy  agree  with 
the  alternative  theory,  which  the  Bishop  has  undertaken 

6 


122     THE    SOJOURNING    OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN    EGYPT. 

to  defend,  and  which  divides  the  years  of  sojourning 
between  Egypt  and  Canaan.  He  confesses  that  this  is 
"  not  without  a  strain  upon  one's  faith."  For  even 
according  to  this  hypothesis,  Moses  was  born  80  years 
before  the  Exodus  or  185  years  after  the  migration  into 
Egypt.  And  if  Jochebed  was  born  to  Levi  when  he  was 
100  years  old  or  57  years  after  Jacob's  migration,  she 
would  have  been  78  when  Moses  was  born. 

Now  as  we  do  not  think  it  safe  to  put  the  Bishop's 
faith  to  any  more  violent  "strain"  than  is  absolutely 
necessary,  we  hasten  to  relieve  his  mind  of  all  difficulty 
even  as  to  the  longer  term,  by  informing  him  that  beyond 
all  question  some  links  have  been  omitted  in  tracing  the 
line  of  Moses'  descent. 

It  can  scarcely  be  necessary  to  adduce  proof  to  one 
who  has  even  a  superficial  acquaintance  with  the  geneal- 
ogies of  the  Bible,  that  these  are  frequently  abbreviated 
by  the  omission  of  unimportant  names.  In  fact  abridg- 
ment is  the  general  rule,  induced  by  the  indisposition  of 
the  sacred  writers  to  encumber  their  pages  with  more 
names  than  were  necessary  for  their  immediate  purpose. 
This  is  so  constantly  the  case,  and  the  reason  for  it  is  so 
obvious,  that  the  occurrence  of  it  need  create  no  surprise 
anywhere,  and  we  are  at  liberty  to  suppose  it  whenever 
anything  in  the  circumstances  of  the  case  favours  that 
belief. 

The  omissions  in  the  genealogy  of  our  Lord  as  given 
in  Matthew  i,,  are  familiar  to  all.  Thus  in  ver.  8, 
three  names  are  dropped  between  Joram  and  Ozias 
(Uzziah),  viz.  Ahaziah  2  Kings  ix.  29,  Joash  2  Kings  xii. 
1,  and  Amaziah  2  Kings  xiv.  1  ;  and  in  ver.  11  Jehoia- 
kim  is  omitted  after  Josiah  2  Kings  xxiii.  34,  Chron.  iii. 
16.     And  in  ver.  1,  the  entire  genealogy  is  summed  up 


THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT.     123 

in  two  steps  "Jesus  Christ,  the  son  of  David,  the  son  of 
Abraham." 

Other  instances  abound  elsewhere ;  we  mention  onlj^  a 
few  of  the  most  striking.  In  1  Chron.  xxvi.  24  we  read 
in  a  list  of  appointments  made  by  King  David  (see 
1  Chron.  xxiv.  3,  xxv.  1,  xxvi.  26),  that  Shebael,^  the 
son  of  Gershom,  the  son  of  Moses,  was  ruler  of  the  trea- 
sures ;  and  again  in  1  Chron.  xxiii.  15,  16,  we  find  it 
written  '  The  sons  of  Moses  were  Gershom  and  Eliezer. 
Of  the  sons  of  Gershom  Shebuel  was  the  chief.'  Now 
with  all  Colenso's  contempt  for  the  "  Chronicler,"  he  can 
scarcely  charge  him  with,  ignorance  so  gross  as  to  suppose 
that  the  grandson  of  Moses  could  be  living  in  the  reign 
of  David  and  appointed  by  him  to  a  responsible  office. 
Again  in  the  same  connection  1  Chron.  xxvi.  31,  '  among 
the  Hebronites  was  Jerijah  the  chief;'  and  this  Jerijah 
or  Jeriah  (for  the  names  are  identical,)  was,  xxiii.  19,  the 
first  of  the  sons  of  Hebron,  and  Hebron  was  ver.  12,  the 
son  of  Kohath,  the  son  of  Levi,  ver.  6.  So  that  upon 
Colenso's  principle  of  not  allowing  for  any  contraction 
in  genealogical  lists,  we  have  the  great-grandson  of  Levi 
holding  a  prominent  office  in  the  reign  of  David.  Per- 
haps the  Bishop  can  tell  us,  how  old  his  mother  must 
have  been  when  he-  was  born.  Jochebed  bearing  Moses 
in  her  two  hundred  and  fifty-sixth  year  would  be  nothing 
to  it. 

The  genealogy  of  Ezra  is  recorded  in  the  book  which 
bears  his  name ;  but  we  learn  from  another  passage,  in 
which  the  same  line  of  descent  is  given,  that  it  has  been 


*  He  is  called  in  1  Chron.  xxiv.  20,  a  son  of  Amram,  the  ancestor  of 
Moses ;  for  Shubael  and  Shebuel  are  in  all  probability  mere  orthographic 
variations  of  the  same  name. 


124     THE    SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT. 

abridged  bj  tlie   omission   of  six  consecutive  names. 
This  will  appear  from  the  following  comparison,  viz  : 


Chron.  vi.  3-14. 

Ezra  vii.  1-5. 

1.  Aaron 

Aaron 

2.  Eleazar 

Eleazar 

3.  Phinehas 

Phinehas 

4.  Abishua 

Abishua 

5.  Bukki 

Bukki 

6.  Uzzi 

Uzzi 

7.  Zerahiah 

Zerahiah 

8.  Meraioth 

Meraioth 

9.  Amariah 

10.  Ahitub 

11.  Zadok 

12.  Ahimaaz 

13.  Azariah 

14.  Johanan 

15.  Azariah 

A  zariah 

16.  Amariah 

Amariah 

11.  Ahitub 

Ahitub 

18.  Zadok 

Zadok 

19.  Shallum 

Shallum 

20.  Hilkiah 

Hilkiah 

21.  Azariah 

Azariah 

22.  Seraiah 

Seraiah 

Ezra 

Still  further  Ezra  relates  vin.  1-2  : — 

'  These  are  now  the  chief  of  their  fathers,  and  this  is 
the  genealogy  of  them  that  went  up  with  me  from  Baby- 
lon, in  the  reign  of  Artaxerxes  the  King.  Of  the  sons 
of  Phinehas,  Gershom.  Of  the  sons  of  Ithamar,  Daniel. 
Of  the  sons  of  David,  Hattush.' 

Here,  according  to  the  Bishop's  principle  of  interpreting 
genealogies,  we  have  a  great-grandson  and  a  grandson  of 
Aaron,  and  a  son  of  David  coming  up  with  Ezra  from 
Babylon  after  the  captivity.  Now,  though  the  Bishop, 
p.  157,  by  a  stroke  of  his  pen  and  without  assigning  any 


THE   SOJOURNING  OF   THE   ISRAELITES    IN    EGYPT.     125 

reason  for  it,  decides  that  this  book  was  "  certainly  com- 
posed long  after  the  captivitj^,"  he  can  scarcely  think  its 
author  so  utterly  ignorant  of  chronology  as  this  would 
imply.  Or  if  he  were  even  prepared  to  go  this  length, 
such  a  conclusion  is  precluded  by  the  more  detailed 
genealogy  of  Hattush  in  1  Chron.  iii.,  see  ver.  22,  espe- 
cially as  he  assigns  the  books  of  Chronicles  to  '  the  same 
author  who  wrote  the  book  of  Ezra.' 

This  disposition  to  abbreviate  genealogies  by  the 
omission  of  whatever  is  unessential  to  the  immediate 
purpose  of  the  writer  is  shown  by  still  more  remarkable 
reductions  than  those  which  we  have  been  considering. 
Persons  of  different  degrees  of  relationship  are  sometimes 
thrown  together  under  a  common  title  descriptive  of  the 
majority,  and  all  words  of  explanation,  even  those  which 
seem  essential  to  the  sense,  are  rigorously  excluded,  the 
supplying  of  these  chasms  being  left  to  the  independent 
knowledge  of  the  reader.  Hence  several  passages  in  the 
genealogies  of  Chronicles  have  now  become  hopelessly 
obscure.  They  may  have  been  intelligible  enough  to 
contemporaries ;  but  for  those  who  have  no  extraneous 
sources  of  information,  the  key  to  their  explanation  is 
wanting.  In  other  cases  we  are  able  to  understand 
them,  because  the  information  necessary  to  make  them 
intelligible  is  supplied  from  parallel  passages  of  Scrip- 
ture. Thus  the  opening  verses  of  Chronicles  contain  the 
following  bald  list  of  names  without  a  word  of  explana- 
tion, viz.: 

'  Adam,  Sheth,  Enosh,  Kenan,  Mahalaleel,  Jered, 
Henoch,  Methuselah,  Lamech,  Noah,  Shem,  Ham,  and 
Japheth.' 

We  are  not  told  who  these  persons  are,  how  they  were 
related  to  each  other,  or  whether  they  were  related.  The 


126      THE    SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN"   EGYPT. 

writer  presuraes  that  liis  readers  have  the  book  of  Genesis 
in  their  hands,  and  that  the  simple  mention  of  these 
names  in  their  order  will  be  sufficient  to  remind  them 
that  the  first  ten  trace  the  line  of  descent  from  father  to 
son  from  the  first  to  the  second  great  progenitor  of  man- 
kind ;  and  that  the  last  three  are  brothers,  although  no 
thing  is  said  to  indicate  that  their  relationship  is  different 
from  the  preceding. 

Again,  the  family  of  Eliphaz,  the  son  of  Esau,  is 
spoken  of  in  the  following  terms  in  1  Chron.  i.  36 : 

'  The  sons  of  Eliphaz :  Teman  and  Omar,  Zephi  and 
Gatam,  Kenaz  and  Timna,  and  Amalek.' 

Now,  by  turning  to  Gen.  xxxvi.  11,  12,  we  shall  see 
that  the  first  five  are  sons  of  Eliphaz,  and  the  sixth  his 
concubine,  who  was  the  mother  of  the  seventh.  This  is 
so  plainly  written  in  Genesis,  that  the  author  of  Chroni- 
cles, were  he  the  most  inveterate  blunderer  could  not 
have  mistaken  it.  But  trusting  to  the  knowledge  of  his 
readers  to  supply  the  omission,  he  leaves  out  the  state- 
ment respecting  Eliphaz's  concubine,  but  at  the  same 
time  connects  her  name  and  that  of  her  son  with  the 
family  to  which  they  belong,  and  this  though  he  was 
professedly  giving  a  statement  of  the  sons  of  Eliphaz. 

So  likewise  in  the  pedigree  of  Samuel  (or  Shemuel, 
ver.  83,  the  difference  in  orthography  is  due  to  our 
translators,  and  is  not  in  the  original),  which  is  given  in 
1  Chron.  vi.,  in  both  an  ascending  and  descending  series. 
Thus  in  vs.  22-24  : 

^  The  sons  of  Kohath  :  Amminadab  his  son,  Korah  his 
son,  Assir  his  son,  Elkanah  his  son,  and  Ebiasaph  his 
son,  and  Assir  his  son,  Tahath  his  son,  etc' 

The  extent  to  which  the  framer  of  this  list  has  studied 
comprehensiveness  and  conciseness  will  appear  from  the 


THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT.     127 

fact,  whicli  no  one  would  suspect  unless  informed  from 
other  sources,  that  while  the  general  law  which  prevails 
in  it  is  that  of  descent  from  father  to  son,  the  third,  fourth, 
and  fifth  names  are  brothers.  This  is  shown  by  a  com- 
parison of  Ex.  vi.  24,  and  the  parallel  genealogy, 
1  Chron,  vi.  36,  37.  So  that  the  true  line  of  descent  is 
the  following,  viz. : 

In  vs.  22-24   Kohatli  In  vs.  31,  38  Kohath 
Amraiaadab  Izhar 

Korali  Korah 

Assir,  Elkanah,    Ebiasaph  Ebiasaph 

Assir  Assir 

Tahath,  etc.  Tahath,  etc. 

The  circumstance  that  the  son  of  Kohath  is  called  in 
one  list  Amminadab,  and  in  the  other  Izhar,  is  no  real 
discrepancy  and  can  create  no  embarrassment,  since  it  is 
no  unusual  thing  for  the  same  person  to  have  two  names. 
Witness  Abram  and  Abraham,  Jacob  and  Israel, 
Joseph  and  Zaphnath-paaneah,  Gen.  xli.  45,  Oshea, 
Jehoshua,  Num.  xiii.  16  (or  Joshua)  and  Jeshua,  Neh. 
viii.  17,  Gideon  and  Jerubbaal,  Judg.  vi.  32,  Solomon  and 
Jedidiah,  2  Sam.  xii.  24,  25,  Azariah  and  Uzziah,  2  Kin. 
XV.  1.  13,  Daniel  and  Belteshazzar,  Hananiah,  Mishael, 
Azariah  and  Shadrach,  Meshach,  Abednego,  Dan.  i.  7 ; 
Saul  and  Paul,  Thomas  and  Didymus,  Cephas  and  Peter, 
and  in  profane  history  Cyaxares  and  Darius,  Octavianus 
and  Augustus,  Napoleon  and  Buonaparte,  Ferretti  and 
Pius  IX.,  Colenso  and  Natal  (p.  37). 

We  think  that  with  these  facts  before  him  it  would  be 
putting  no  undue  strain  upon  the  Bishop's  '■  faith'  to  ask 
him  to  admit  that  the  genealogy  of  Moses  may  have  been 
condensed,  as  so  many  others  have  been,  by  the  dropping 
of  some  of  the  less  important  names.    The  question,  with 


128     THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT. 

wliicli  we  are  concerned,  is  not  how  the  Bishop  would 
have  constructed  a  genealogy,  nor  how  in  his  opinion 
the  Hebrews  ought  to  have  kept  their  genealogies,  or  in- 
spired men  ought  to  have  recorded  them,  but  what  are 
the  facts?  What  is  the  structure  of  the  genealogies 
actually  found  in  the  Scriptures?  And  inasmuch  as 
names,  which  would  be  a  needless  incumbrance,  are  so 
frequently  passed  over ;  why  may  not  that  be  the  case 
in  the  present  instance?^ 

We  need  not  content  ourselves,  however,  with  a  pos- 

*  "We  may  here  be  indulged  with  a  remark  aside  from  the  special  topic 
before  us,  viz. :  that  if  scientific  research  should  ever  demonstrate  what  it 
cannot  be  said  to  have  done  as  yet,  that  the  race  of  man  has  existed  upon 
the  earth  for  a  longer  period  than  the  ordinary  Hebrew  Chronology  will 
allow,  we  would  be  disposed  to  seek  the  solution  in  this  frequent,  if  not 
pervading,  characteristic  of  the  Scriptural  genealogies.  The  Septuagint 
chronology,  to  which  many  have  fled  in  their  desire  to  gain  the  additional 
centuries  wliich  it  allots  to  human  history,  is,  we  are  persuaded,  a  bro- 
ken reed.  The  weight  of  evidence  preponderates  immensely  in  favour 
of  the  correctness  of  the  Hebrew  text,  and  against  the  accuracy  of  the 
deviations  of  the  Septuagiut.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  there  is  an 
element  of  uncertainty  in  a  computation  of  time  which  rests  upon  gene- 
alogies, as  the  sacred  chronology  so  largely  does.  "Who  is  to  certify  us 
that  the  ante-diluvian  and  ante-Abrahamic  genealogies  have  not  been  con- 
densed in  the  same  manner  as  the  post-Abrahamic  ?  If  Matthew  omitted 
names  from  the  ancestry  of  our  Lord  in  order  to  equalize  the  three  great 
periods  over  which  he  passes,  may  not  Moses  have  done  the  same  in  order 
to  bring  out  seven  generations  from  Adam  to  Enoch,  and  ten  from  Adam 
to  Noah  ?  Our  current  chronology  is  based  upon  the  prima  facie  im- 
pression of  these  genealogies.  This  we  shall  adhere  to,  until  we  see  good 
reason  for  giving  it  up.  But  if  these  recently  discovered  indications  of  the 
antiquity  of  man,  over  which  scientific  circles  are  now  so  excited,  shall, 
when  carefully  inspected  and  thoroughly  weighed,  demonstrate  all  that 
any  have  imagined  they  might  demonstrate,  what  then  ?  They  will 
simply  show  that  the  popular  chronology  is  based  upon  a  wrong  interpre- 
tation, and  that  a  select  and  partial  register  of  ante-Abrahamic  names  has 
been  mistaken  for  a  complete  one. 


THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT.     129 

sibility  or  a  probability  ;  we  have  the  means  of  arriving 
at  positive  certainty.  This  is  afforded  us  in  the  first 
place  by  parallel  genealogies  of  the  same  period,  as  that 
of  Bezaleel,  1  Chron.  ii.  18-20,  which  records  seven 
generations  from  Jacob,  and  that  of  Joshua,  1  Chron.  vii. 
23-27,  which  records  eleven.  Kow,  it  is  not  conceivable 
without  a  very  severe  'strain  upon  one's  faith,'  that 
there  should  be  eleven  links  in  the  line  of  descent  from 
Jacob  to  Joshua,  and  only  four  from  Jacob  to  Moses. 

A  still  more  convincing  proof  is  yielded  by  ISTum.  iii. 
19,  27,  28,  from  which  it  appears  that  the  four  sons  of 
Kohath  severally  gave  rise  to  the  families  of  the  Amra- 
mites,  the  Izeharites,  the  Hebronites,  and  the  Uzzielites ; 
and  that  the  number  of  the  male  members  of  these  fami- 
lies of  a  month  old  and  upward  was  8,600  one  year  after 
the  Exodus.  So  that  if  no  abridgment  has  taken  place 
in  the  genealogy,  the  grandfather  of  Moses  had  in  the 
lifetime  of  the  latter  8,600  descendants  of  the  male  sex 
alone,  2,750  of  them  being  between  the  ages  of  thirty 
and  fift}^,  Num.  iv.  36. 

It  may  suit  the  purposes  of  Colenso  (p.  170),  to  attempt 
to  fasten  such  a  glaring  Munchausenism  as  this  upon  the 
author  of  the  Pentateuch.  But  persons  of  a  more  sober 
judgment  will  conclude  that  whether  the  Pentateuch  is 
a  history  or  a  fiction,  this  cannot  be  its  meaning ;  and 
they  will  prefer  to  avoid  this  incredible  result  by  assum- 
ing that  the  genealogy  of  Moses  is  constructed  upon  the 
same  principle  of  condensation,  which  prevails  to  so 
great  an  extent  in  those,  which  are  found  in  other  parts 
of  Scripture.  Is  there  anything,  then,  in  the  structure 
of  this  genealogy  to  preclude  so  necessary  an  assump- 
tion ? 

It  might  appear  at  first  sight  as  though  there  was,  and 
6* 


130     THE    SOJOUERIXG   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT. 

as  thougli  the  letter  of  it  shut  us  up  to  the  inevitable 
conclusion  that  there  were  four  links  and  no  more  from 
Jacob  to  Moses.  The  names  which  we  find  without 
deviation  in  all  the  genealogies,  are  Jacob,  Levi,  Kohath, 
Amram,  Moses,  Ex.  vi.  16-20,  Num.  iii.  17-19,  xxvi. 
57-59,  1  Chron.  vi.  1-3,  16-18,  xxiii.  6-12-13.  Now 
unquestionably  Levi  was  Jacob's  own  son.  So  likewise 
Kohath  was  the  son  of  Levi,  Gen.  xlvi.  11,  and  born 
before  the  descent  into  Egypt.  Amram  also  was  the 
immediate  descendant  of  Kohath ;  it  is  not  possible,  as 
Kurtz  proposes,  to  insert  the  missing  links  between 
them.  For  in  the  first  place  according  to  Num.  xxvi.  59, 
'  the  name  of  Am  ram's  wife  was  Jochebed,  the  daughter 
of  Levi,  whom  her  mother  bare  to  Levi  in  Egypt,' 
this  Jochebed  being,  Ex.  vi.  20,  'his  father's  sister.' 
Now  while  a  '  daughter  of  Levi '  might  have  the  general 
sense  of  a  descendant  of  Levi,  as  the  woman  healed  by 
our  Lord,  Luke  xiii.  16,  is  called  a  '  daughter  of  Abra- 
ham,' the  words  which  follow  are  too  specific  to  admit 
of  this  interpretation.  A  daughter  horn  to  Levi  in  Egypt 
naturally  suggests  the  contrast  of  members  of  his  family 
born  before  he  left  Canaan,  and  seems  to  confine  the 
meaning  to  one  of  Levi's  own  children.  Kurtz  proposes 
to  rid  himself  of  this  troublesome  expression  by  assuming 
that  it  is  an  interpolation.  But  that  is  an  extreme  mea- 
sure, not  to  be  resorted  to  except  in  cases  of  absolute 
necessity.  Jochebed,  therefore,  was  Levi's  own  daugh- 
ter, and  the  sister  of  Kohath,  who  must  accordingly  have 
been  Amram's  own  father.  And  secondly,  Amram  was. 
Num.  iii.  27,  the  father  of  one  of  the  four  subdivisions 
of  the  Kohathites,  these  subdivisions  springing  from 
Kohath's  own  children,  and  comprising  together  8,600 
male  descendants.     Moses'  father  surely  could  not  have 


THE    SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITI^   IN   EGYPT.     131 

been  the  ancestor  of  one-fourtli  of  this  number  in  Moses' 
own  daj^s. 

To  avoid  this  difficulty  Tiele"^  and  Keilf  assume  that 
there  were  two  Amrams,  one  the  son  of  Kohath,  another, 
who  was  a  more  remote  descendant  but  bore  the  same 
name  with  his  ancestor,  the  father  of  Moses.  This 
relieves  the  embarrassment  created  by  the  Amramites, 
Num.  iii.  27,  but  is  still  liable  to  that  which  arises  from 
making  Jochebed  the  mother  of  Moses.  And  further 
the  structure  of  the  genealogy  in  Ex.  vi.  is  such  as  to 
make  this  hypothesis  unnatural  and  improbable.  Yerse 
16  names  the  three  sons  of  Levi,  Gershon,  Kohath,  and 
Merari ;  vers.  17-19  the  sons  of  each  in  their  order ;  vers. 
20-22  the  children  of  Kohath's  sons ;  vers.  23-24  con- 
tain descendants  of  the  next  generation,  and  ver.  25  the 
generation  next  following.  ISTow  according  to  the  view 
of  Tiele  and  Keil  we  must  either  suppose  that  the 
Amram,  Izhar  and  Uzziel  of  vers.  20-22  are  all  different 
from  the  Amram,  Izhar  and  Uzziel  of  ver.  18,  or  else 
that  Amram  though  belonging  to  a  later  generation  than 
Izhar  and  Uzziel,  is  introduced  before  them,  which  the 
regular  structure  of  the  genealogy  forbids,  and  besides 
the  sons  of  Izhar,  and  the  sons  of  Uzziel  who  are  here 
named,  were  the  contemporaries  of  Moses  and  Aaron  the 
sons  of  Amram,  'Nam.  xvi.  1,  Lev.  x.  4. 

This  subject  may  be  relieved  from  all  perplexity,  how- 
ever, by  observing  that  Amram  and  Jochebed  were  not 
the  immediate  parents,  but  only  the  ancestors  of  Aaron 
and  Moses.  How  many  generations  may  have  inter- 
vened we  cannot  tell.  It  is  indeed  said  Ex.  vi.  20,  Num. 
xxvi.  59,  that  Jochebed  bare  them  to  Amram ;  but  in 

*  Das  erste  Buch  Moses,  p.  409,  eta 

f  Biblischer  Commentar  uber  die  Bucher  Mose's  I.  p,  350. 


132     THE   SOJOURXIXG   OF   THE   ISRAELITES    IN   EGYPT. 

the  language  of  genealogies  this  simply  means  that  they 
were  descended  from  her  and  from  Amram.  Thus  in 
Gen.  xlvi.  18,  after  recording  the  sons  of  Zilpah,  her 
grandsons  and  her  great-grandsons,  the  writer  adds, 
'  These  are  the  sons  of  Zilpah  ....  and  these  she  hare  unto 
Jacob,  even  sixteen  souls.'  The  same  thing  recurs  in  the 
case  of  Bilhah,  ver.  25 :  '  she  bare  these  unto  Jacob ;  all  the 
souls  were  seven.'  Compare  vers.  15,  22.  ISTo  one  can 
pretend  here  that  the  author  of  this  register  did  not  use 
the  term  understandingly  of  descendants  bej^ond  the  first 
generation.  In  like  manner  according  to  Mat.  i.  11, 
Josias  begat  his  grandson  Jechonias,  and  ver.  8,  Joram 
begat  his  great-great-grandson  Qzias.  And  in  Gen.  x. 
15-18  Canaan,  the  grandson  of  Koah,  is  said  to  have 
begotten  several  whole  nations,  the  Jebusite,  the  Amo- 
rite,  the  Girgasite,  the  Hivite,  etc.,  etc.  ISTotbing  can  be 
plainer,  therefore,  than  that  in  the  usage  of  the  Bible,  'to 
bear '  and  '  to  beget '  are  used  in  a  wide  sense  to  indicate 
descent,  without  restricting  this  to  the  immediate  off- 
spring. 

Nothing,  therefore^  obliges  us  to  regard  Amram  and 
Jochebed  as  the  immediate  parents  of  Aaron  and  Moses, 
unless  it  be  that.  Lev.  x.  4,  Uzziel,  Amram's  brother,  is 
called  '  the  uncle  {ii)  of  Aaron.'  But,  in  fact,  the  He- 
brew n>,  like  the  EngUsh  .coiisin  .{from  consanguineus), 
though  often  specificall}^  applied  to  a  de-finite  degree  of 
relationship,  has,  both  from  etymology  and  usage,  a 
much  wider  sense.  Accordingl}^,  i^,  Jer.  xxxii.  12,  has 
the  same  meaning  as  iT']3,  ver.  8,  showing  that  it  may 
mean  cousin  as  well  as  uncle.  But,  though  the  word 
were  restricted  in  its  significance  to  a  father'' s  brother,  it 
must  still,  of  necessity,  have  a  range  equal  to  that  of 
father  itself,  and  denote  in  general  the  brother   of  a 


THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES   IN   EGYPT.     133 

paternal  ancestor.     A  great-great-grand-uncle  is  still  an 
uncle,  and  would  be  properly  described  by  the  term  i^. 

It  may  also  be  observed,  that  in  the  actual  history  of 
the  birth  of  Moses  his  jDarents  are  not  called  Amram  and 
Jochebed.  It  is  simply  said,  Ex.  ii.  1 ;  '  And  there  went 
a  man  of  the  house  of  Levi  and  took  to  wife  a  daughter 
of  Levi.' 

If  it  be  asked,  why  were  just  these  three  remote  ances- 
tors of  Moses  named,  and  his  more  immediate  progeni- 
tors omitted?  the  answer  is,  that  these  characterized 
with  sufficient  accuracy  the  line  of  descent  to  which  he 
belonged.  He  was  of  the  tribe  of  Levi,  of  the  family  of 
Kohath,  and  of  that  division  of  the  family  which  was 
descended  from  Amram.  To  one  familiar  with  the 
tribal  system  of  Israel  this  described  everything  that  was 
essential.  Princeton,  New  Jersey,  U.  S.  A.,  would  be  a 
sufficient  designation  of  the  place  where  we  are  writing, 
without  the  necessity  of  inserting  the  minuter  divisions 
of  township  and  county.  The  lineage  of  the  present 
sovereign  of  Great  Britain  would  be  sufficiently  indi- 
cated, and  her  claim  to  the  throne  exhibited,  by  pointing 
out  that  she  is  sprung  from  the  house  of  Hanover,  and 
this  from  the  Stuarts,  and  the  Stuarts  from  the  Planta- 
genets,  the  Plantagenets  from  the  Tudors,  and  the  Tu- 
dors  from  the  house  of  Normandy.  That  Victoria  is  the 
rightful  heiress  of  George  I.,  who  was  descended  from 
James  I.,  who  was  descended  from  Henry  YII.,  who  was 
descended  from  Henry  II.,  who  was  descended  from 
William  the  Conqueror,  tells  the  whole  storj^  Her  line 
of  descent  is  completely  traced  without  the  insertion  of 
another  name. 

The  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter,  therefore,  is  that 
the  genealogy  of  Moses  and  Aaron  interposes  no  obstacle 


134     THE   SOJOURNING   OF   THE   ISRAELITES    IN   EGYPT. 

to  understanding  Ex.  xii.  40,  as  Colenso  tells  us  it  may 
'  more  naturally  '  be  understood.  And  as  this  is  the  last 
of  the  '  serious  difficulties '  of  which  he  speaks,  in  the 
way  of  this  more  natural  interpretation,  we  cannot  but 
think  that  the  way  is  open  for  him  to  adopt  it  without 
any  further  '  strain  upon  his  faith.'  Israel  was  430  years 
in  Egypt. 


CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  EXODUS  IN"  THE  FOURTH  GENERATION.  . 

CoLENSO  understands  tlie  declaration,  Gen.  xv.  16,  'in 
the  fourth  generation  they  shall  come  hither  again,'  to 
mean  that  the  descendants  of  the  patriarchs  at  the  fourth 
remove  from  those  who  went  down  into  Egypt,  should 
leave  the  land  of  their  oppression.  He  nowhere  inti- 
mates that  the  expression  has  ever  been  understood,  or 
can  possibly  be  understood,  in  any  other  way.  If  he  had 
studied  Kurtz  as  carefully  as  he  professes  to  have  done, 
he  ought  to  have  learned  that  the  term  '  generation  '  is 
often  used  to  denote  the  entire  body  of  contemporarj^ 
men,  and  that  its  duration  is  measured  by  the  length  of 
human  life.  Thus,  it  is  said,  Ex.  i.  6 :  '  And  Joseph 
died,  and  all  his  brethren,  and  all  that  generation ;' 
although  Joseph's  life  was  extended  to  four  generations, 
in  the  narrower  sense  of  the  term,  for  he  saw  his  son 
Ephraim's  great-grandsons,  Gen.  1.  23.  A  hundred  years 
is  not  too  long  an  estimate  for  a  generation  at  that  period, 
and  in  that  case  the  fourth  generation  will  be  coincident 
with  the  400  years,  ver.  12,  during  which  Abraham's 
seed  was  to  be  '  a  stranger  in  a  land  that  is  not  theirs.' 

But  the  Bishop  undertakes  to  confirm  his  view  of  the 
case  in  the  following  manner  * 


136 


THE   EXODUS   IN   THE   FOURTH   GENERATION. 


"  If  we  examine  the  different  genealogies  of  remarkable  men,  which  are 
given  in  various  places  of  tlie  Pentateuch,  we  shall  find  that,  as  a  rule, 
the  contemporaries  of  Moses  and  Aaron  are  descendants  in  the  tliird,  and 
those  of  Joshua  and  Eleazar  in  the  fourth  generation,  from  some  one  of  the 
sons,  or  adult  grandsons,  of  Jacob,  who  went  down  with  him  into  Egypt. 
Thus  we  have : — 


1st  Gen.    2d  Gon.  3d  Gen, 

Levi Kohath  Amram  Moses 

Levi Kohath  Amram  Aaron 

Levi Kohath  Uzziel    Mishael 

Levi Kohath  Uzziel    Elzaphan 

Levi Kohath  Izhar 

Reuben..  PaUu      Eliab 
Reuben  . .  Pallu      Eliab 

Zarah Zabdi     Carmi 

Pharez. .  .Hezron  Ram 


4th  Gen.    5th  Gen. 


*Korah 
Dathan 
Abiram 
Achan 
Amminadab  Nahshon 


Pharez . . .  Hezron  Segub    Jair 
Pharez . . .  Hezron  Caleb     Hur 


. . .  Ex.  vi.  16,  18,  20. 
. . .  Ex.  vi.  16, 18,  20. 
. . .  Lev.  X.  4. 
. . .  Lev  X.  4. 
. . .  Num.  xvi.  1. 
. . .  Num.  xxvi.  7-9. 
. . .  Num.  xxvi.  7-9. 
. . .  Josh.  vii.  1» 
. . .  Ruth  iv.  18,  19. 
. . .  1  Ch.  ii.  21,  22. 


Uri    Bezaleel  1  Ch.  ii.  18-20. 


Upon  this  tabular  exhibit  we  may  remark  first,  that 
the  measure  of  correspondence  which  appears  in  it  is  in 
part  produced  by  forcing.  While  the  first  seven  are 
counted  from  the  sons  of  Jacob,  the  last  four  are  reck- 
oned from  his  grandsons.  Nahshon  would  be  the  fifth, 
and  Bezaleel  the  sixth  from  Judah  ;  or,  if  the  other  mode 
of  reckoning  be  adopted,  Moses,  Aaron,  etc.,  would  be 
the  second  from  Kohath.  It  is  too  bad  for  the  Bishop 
to  try  to  impose  upon  his  readers  by  the  remark,  that 

"  Hezron,  as  well  as  his  father,  Pharez,  was  born,  according  to  the  story, 
in  the  land  of  Canaan ;  so  that  Bezaleel  was  actually  still  in  the  fourth 
generation  from  one  who  went  down  into  Egypt." 

The  very  first  difficulty  which  he  alleges  in  the  Mosaic 
narrative,  and  to  which  he  devotes  two  chapters,  is  that 
Hezron,  "  according  to  the  story,^^  could  not  have  been 
born  in  the  land  of  Canaan.  With  the  best  disposition 
to  accommodate  the  Bishop,  we  cannot  suffer  him  to 


THE   EXODUS   IN   THE   FOURTH   GENERATION.  137 

stand  on  botli  sides  of  tlie  same  fence.  Secondly,  the 
correspondence  would  be  still  further  destroyed  by 
including  Zelophehad,^  Num.  xxvii.  1,  the  fifth,  and 
Joshua,  1  Chron.  vii.  22-27,  the  tenth  from  Joseph. 
Thirdh',  it  has  already  been  shown  that  the  genealogy  of 
Moses  and  Aaron  is  abridged,  by  omitting  some  of  their 
more  immediate  ancestors.  The  same  argument  is  valid 
for  Mishael,  Elzaphan,  and  Korah,  and,  to  say  the  least, 
creates  a  probability  that  the  same  is  the  case  with  the 
rest.  Fourthly,  that  the  genealogy  in  which  Nahshon 
stands  has  been  similarly  condensed,  is  susceptible  of 
ready  proof.  His  grandson,  Boaz,  Ruth  iv.  21,  22,  was 
the  son  of  Rahab,  Matt.  i.  5,  and  the  great-grandfather 
of  David.  As  Rahab  was  a  woman  in  mature  life  at  the 
time  of  the  miraculous  passage  of  the  Jordan,  and  it  was 
about  360  yearsf  from  that  event  to  the  birth  of  David, 
some  names  must  have  been  dropped  from  the  genealogy 

*  If  it  were  not  for  the  Bishop's  arithmetical  pedantry  and  his  incessant 
display  of  figures,  we  would  take  no  notice  of  the  following  slip,  which 
need  create  no  surprise,  however,  since  even  honus  clormiiat  Homerus. 

"If  the  sojourn  in  Egypt  had  lasted  430  years,  instead  of  210  or  215, 
then  360  years  must  have  intervened  between  the  birth  of  Gilead  and  the 
Exodus ;  and  we  should  have  to  suppose  that  Gilead  had  a  son,  Hepher, 
when  180  years  old,  and  Hepher  also  had  a  son,  ZelophehafI,  when  180 
years  old,  that  so  Zelophehad  might  even  have  been  born  at  the  time  of 
the  Exodus,  and  been  able  to  have  full-grown  daughters,  as  the  story 
implies,  at  the  end  of  the  forty  years'  wanderings." 

But  why  must  Zelophehad  be  just  'born  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus?' 
He  may  have  been,  for  all  that  appears,  forty  years  of  age,  or  older  still, 
and  then  his  fiither  and  grandfather  need  only  have  been  160  at  the  birth 
of  their  respective  children.  The  author  of  an  arithmetic  ought  to  have 
been  more  exact. 

f  From  1  Kings  vi.  1  it  appears  that  the  4th  year  of  Solomon's  reign 
was  the  480th  after  the  departure  from  Egypt ;  from  this  must  be  deducted 
the  40  years  spent  in  the  wilderness,  the  length  of  David's  life,  which  is 
not  certainly  known,  and  4  years  of  the  reign  of  Solomon. 


138  THE   EXODUS   IN   THE   FOURTH   GENERATION. 

or  else  eacli  parent  was  on  an  average  between  90  and 
100  years  old  at  the  birth  of  his  child.  Fifthly,  the 
genealogy  of  Moses  and  Aaron,  Ex.  vi.  16-20,  doubtless 
contains  an  allusion  to  God's  promise  to  Abraham,  that 
his  seed  should  return  to  Canaan  in  the  fourth  genera- 
tion. This  is  to  be  found,  not  in  the  number  of  its  links, 
but  in  the  indication  which  it  affords  of  their  length. 
We  are  told,  ver.  16,  that  the  years  of  the  life  of  Levi 
were  137,  ver.  18,  those  of  Kohath,  133,  ver.  20,  those 
of  Amram,  137.  We  have  before  estimated  these  gene- 
rations at  100  years  each;  if,  upon  the  evidence  fur- 
nished by  this  genealogy,  we  reckon  them  at  130,  then 
three  generations  would  be  390  years.  And  in  the 
fourth  generation  the  people  not  only  left  Egypt,  but 
completed  their  wanderings  in  the  desert,  and  actually 
entered  the  promised  land.  So  that  the  language  of 
Gen.  XV.  16  is  precisely  verified. 

The  genealogy  of  Joshua,  1  Chron.  vii.  22-27,  is  so 
troublesome  to  our  author  that  he  sets  himself  to  get  rid 
of  it  at  all  hazards.  He  first  shows  that  upon  his 
estimate  of  the  abode  in  Egypt,  there  would  not  be  time 
for  ten  generations  from  Joseph  to  Joshua;  and  then 
instead  of  concluding  that  his  estimate  is  wrong  insists 
that  the  genealogy  is  incredible. 

**  Again,  according  to  the  chronicler,  '  Elishama,  the  son  of  Ammihud,' 
was  the  grandfather  of  Joshua.  But  '  EHshama,  the  son  of  Ammihud,' 
was  himself  the  captain  of  the  host  of  Ephraim,  Num.  ii.  18,  about  a  year 
after  his  grandson,  Joshua,  had  commanded  the  whole  Hebrew  force  which 
fought  with  Amalek,  Ex.  xvii.  8-16,  which  also  is  hardly  credible." 

We  find  no  difficulty  in  believing  that  a  man  and  his 
grandfather  might  both  be  in  active  duty  at  the  same 
time ;  and  we  are  surprised  that  it  should  trouble  Colenso, 
when  on  the  very  next  page  he  argues  from  it  as  a  fact 


THE   EXODTJS   IN   THE   FOrRTH   GENERATION.  139 

that  Joseph  was  living  at  the  birth  of  Ammihud,  his 
great-great-grandson,  Gen.  1.  23. 

"  In  vers.  22, 23,  we  have  this  most  astonishing  fact  stated,  that  Ephrain: 
himself,  after  the  slaughter  bj  the  men  of  Gath  of  his  descendants  in  the 
sevejith  generation,  '  mourned  many  days,'  and  then  married  again,  and 
had  a  son  Beriah,  who  was  the  ancestor  of  Joshua  P 

The  passage  on  which  he  professes  to  base  this  most 
extraordinary  and  absurd  misrepresentation  is  the  fol- 
lowing: 

"And  the  sons  of  Ephraim:  Shuthelah  and  Bered  his  son,  and  Tahath 
his  son,  and  Eladah  hia  son,  and  Tahath  his  son,  and  Zabad  his  son,  and 
Shuthelah  his  son,  and  Ezer  and  Elead,  whom  the  men  of  Gath  that  were 
born  in  that  land  slew,  because  they  came  down  to  take  away  their  cattle. 
And  Ephraim  their  father  mourned  many  days,  and  his  brethren  came  to 
comfort  him.  And  when  he  went  in  to  his  wife,  she  conceived  and  bare 
a  son,  and  he  called  his  name  Beriah,  because  it  went  evil  with  his  house." 

There  is  a  possible  corroboration  of  the  circumstance 
here  referred  to  in  1  Chron.  viii.  13,  whence  it  appears 
that  certain  descendants  of  Benjamin,  ancestors  of  the 
subsequent  settlers  in  Ajalon,  <■  drove  away  the  inhabitants 
of  Gath.'  But  apart  from  this,  Ezer  and  Elead,  who  were 
slain,  were  not  sons  of  the  seventh  generation,  but  the 
immediate  children  of  Ephraim,  and  are  to  be  connected 
directly  with  the  first  Shuthelah,  the  intervening  names 
which  trace  the  descent  from  Shuthelah  forming  a  paren- 
thesis. Bertheau,  whose  proclivities  are  anything  but 
favourable  to  the  truth  and  inspiration  of  the  Scripture 
history,  and  who  gives  a  mythical  explanation  of  this 
very  passage,  nevertheless  remarks  upon  it  in  his  com- 
mentary on  Chronicles : 

"  The  descendants  of  Shuthelah  are  traced  through  seven  generations, 
in  which  the  name  Shuthelah  recurs  and  the  name  Tahath  is  found  twice 


140     THE  EXODUS  IN  THE  FOURTH  GENERATION. 

The  two,  wliich  are  named  last,  Ezer  and  Elead,  must  be  regarded  as  sons 
of  Ephraira  and  continue  the  series  begun  with  Shuthelah,  in  ver.  20." 

Sucli  reckless  misstatements  on  the  part  of  the  Bishop, 
compel  us  to  think,  that  he  has  adopted  a  very  singular 
mode  of  propitiating  the  "strong  practical  love^of  truth 
in  his  fellow-countrymen,  whether  Clergy  or  Laity,"  to 
which  as  he  declares  (p.  18)  he  makes  his  appeal. 

The  Targum  relates,  that  Ezer  and  Elead  were  the 
victims  of  a  premature  and  unsuccessful  attempt  to  take 
Palestine,  into  which  they  were  betrayed  by  a  misinter- 
pretation of  the  promise  to  Abraham.  We  are  not  able 
to  verify  the  truth  of  this  tradition ;  but  it  would  be 
curious  if  these  sons  of  Ephraim  had  fallen  into  the 
Bishop's  mistake  of  reckoning  the  four  generations  as 
four  links  in  the  chain  of  descent — Jacob — Joseph — 
Ephraim — Ezer — and  paid  the  penalty  of  their  error  with 
their  lives. 


CHAPTER  XV. 

THE    NUMBER    OF    ISRAELITES    AT    THE    TIME    OF    THE 
EXODUS. 

"  The  twelve  sons  of  Jacob  had  between  them  53  sons,  that  is,  on  the 
average  4^  each.  Let  us  suppose  that  they  increased  in  this  way  from 
generation  to  generation.  Then  ui  the  first  generation,  that  of  Kohaih, 
there  would  be  54  males,  (according  to  the  story,  53,  or  rather  only  51, 
since  Er  and  Onan  died  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  v.  12,  without  issue,) — in 
the  second,  that  of  Aynram,  243, — in  the  ihird,  that  of  Moses  and  Aaron, 
1^094, — and  in  the  fourth,  that  of  Joshua  and  Eleazar,  4,923 ;  that  is  to 
say,  instead  of  600,000  warriors  in  the  prime  of  Kfe,  there  could  not  have 
been  5,000." 

Upon  this  we  remark  in  the  first  place,  that  if  this 
result  be  accepted,  the  difficulty  will  only  be  shifted 
without  being  removed.  It  has  been  seen  in  a  former 
chapter,  that  nothing  is  more  certain  in  the  history  of 
Israel,  than  that  the  people  emigrated  from  Egypt  to  the 
promised  land,  and  took  possession  of  the  latter  by  the 
forcible  expulsion  of  its  former  occupants.  Kow  if 
Joshua  accomplished  this  with  but  five  thousand  men,  he 
must  have  been  attended  with  such  a  divine  blessing  as 
could  with  equal  ease  have  effected  a  miraculous  multi- 
plication of  the  people  in  Egypt. 

Secondly,  The  ratio  of  increase,  which  is  assumed,  is 
based  on  a  very  limited  survey  of  facts,  and  these  not 
impartially  selected  but  artfully  chosen  from  such  as  are 


142  THE   NUMBER   OF   ISRAELITES 

most  favourable  to  the  result  whicli  it  is  desired  to  estab- 
lish. If  Jacob's  own  family  of  twelve  sons  bad  been 
made  the  standard,  his  58  grandsons  would  have  had 
1,099,008  male  descendants  of  the  fourth  generation 
alone,  not  to  speak  of  those  surviving  from  preceding 
generations;  and  1,000,000  males  is  all  that  Colenso 
himself  supposes  that  the  account  in  Exodus  calls  for. 
Besides,  his  estimate  is  derived  from  the  state  of  things 
during  the  period  of  waiting  and  of  expectancy,  and  not 
that  of  the  actual  fulfilment  of  the  promise.  In  order  to 
train  the  faith  of  the  patriarchs,  the  chosen  seed  was 
during  the  first  stage  of  its  existence  restricted  to  a  very 
slender  increase.  The  proper  time  for  it  to  develope 
itself  to  a  nation  did  not  begin  till  Jacob  went  down  into 
Egypt.  A  man  plants  a  young  apple  tree,  and  in  its 
fourth  year  perhaps  gathers  two  or  three  apples  from  it. 
Here  Colenso  would  come  in  with  his  Arithmetic  and 
say,  •  If  it  yields  three  apples  in  four  years,  how  long  will 
it  take  to  yield  a  bushel?'  The  owner  of  the  tree  would 
probably  reply  to  his  calculations,  that  its  bearing  season 
had  not  yet  come. 

Thirdly,  the  assumption  of  but  four  generations  in  the 
sense  here  put  upon  the  term  from  the  descent  into  Egypt 
to  the  Exodus  is  an  error,  as  was  shown  in  the  last 
chapter.  Even  upon  the  theory  that  the  children  of 
Israel  were  but  215  years  in  Egypt,  this  requires  72 
years  for  a  generation,  for  Colenso  counts  Jacob's  grand- 
sons who  w^ent  down  with  him  the  first,  and  those  of  the 
age  of  Joshua  and  Eleazar  the  fourth.  But  let  this  pass. 
The  children  of  Israel  were  430  years  in  Egypt  instead 
of  215.  Double  the  number  of  generations,  and  at  the 
rate  of  increase  which  he  adopts  himself,  the  males  of  the 
eighth  generation  will  amount  to  2,018,786,  twice  as  many 


AT   THE   TIME   OF   THE   EXODUS.  14:3 

consequently  as  the  account  in  Exodus  requires  for  all 
the  males  then  living. 

In  order  to  set  the  statements  of  Moses  in  a  still 
more  unfavourable  light,  the  following  hypothesis  is  sug- 
gested : — 

"  Supposing  the  61  males  of  the^7'5^  generation  ("Koliath's)  to  have  had 
each  on  the  average  three  sons,  and  so  on,  we  sliall  find  the  number  of 
males  in  the  second  generation  (Amram's)  153,  in  the  third  (Aaron's)  459, 
and  in  the  fourth  (Eleazar's)  1377,— instead  of  600,000." 

But  according  to  the  Bishop's  own  figures  Moses  is 
correct  again,  if  we  bear  in  mind  that  the  residence  in 
Egypt  lasted  430  years  and  allow  48  years,  which  is 
surely  long  enough,  for  a  generation.  Then  counting 
Kohath's  generation  the  first,  the  tenth  generation  alone* 
without  allowing  for  any  survivors  from  those  which 
preceded  it  would  amount  to  1,043,199  males. 

In  a  subsequent  chapter  (pp.  172,  173,)  he  presents 
another  view  of  the  case. 

"  Assume  that  the  Hebrew  population  increased,  like  that  of  England, 
at  the  rate  of  23  per  cent,  in  10  years,  then  reckoning  the  males  as  about 
half  the  entire  population,!  we  shall  find  that  the  51  males  in  Gen.  xlvi. 
would  have  only  increased  in  215  years  to  4,375,  instead  of  1,000,000," 

If  we  correct  this  estimate  by  substituting  430  years  in 
place  of  215,  and  6Q  as  the  number  of  male-members  of 
Jacob's  family  who  went  down  into  Egypt  in  place  of  51, 
we  shall  find  that  even  upon  the  rate  of  increase  in  an  old 
and  populous  country  like  England,  the  Israelites  would 

*  According  to  1  Chron.  vii.  22-27,  Joshua  was  the  tenth,  as  Ephraim 
was  the  first,  from  Joseph.  If  any  links  have  been  omitted  from  the 
genealogy,  as  is  possible,  to  say  the  least,  he  belonged  to  a  later  generation 
still. 

f  No  allowance  is  made  for  this  in  the  Bishop's  calculation  ;  the  number, 
which  he  gives,  represents  the  males  simply,  and  must  be  doubled  if  the 
entire  population  is  demajided.  And  the  algebraic  formula  for  its  de.ter- 
mination  is  not  51  (1.23)">r  as  he  states  it,  but  2x51  (1.23)'V^ 


144  THE   NIBIBER   OF   ISRAELITES 

have  amounted  to  484,689  males  at  the  time  of  the 
Exodus.  If,  however,  we  adopt  instead  the  rate  of 
increase  in  the  United  States,  which  on  an  average  from 
1790  to  1850  was  34i  per  cent,  every  ten  years,  they 
would  have  amounted  to  the  prodigious  number  of 
22,625,739  males,  which  is  22  times  greater  than  the 
account  in  Exodus  requires  us  to  suppose.  It  does  not 
seem,  therefore,  that  the  statements  of  Moses  are  so 
incredible  after  all. 

The  theory  of  the  growth  of  population  is  a  very 
intricate  subject,  and  involves  many  difficult  and  delicate 
questions.  In  order  to  treat  the  multiplication  of  the 
Israelites  in  Egypt  understandingiy,  we  would  need  to  be 
informed  minutely  of  many  things  in  their  condition  and 
habits  of  life,  of  which  we  are  profoundly  ignorant.  It 
cannot  be  dismissed,  however,  by  imperiously  pronounc- 
ing it  impossible.  The  considerations  already  presented, 
drawn  from  computations  which  Colenso  himself  allows, 
or  from  modern  analogies  patent  to  all,  are  sufficient  to 
show,  that  there  is  no  natural  impossibility  in  the  case. 
The  precise  course  of  things  we  cannot  trace  in  all  its 
steps  for  each  of  the  requisite  data.  The  following 
estimate  by  Keil,*  presents  a  moderate  and  rational  view 
of  the  case  upon  the  basis  of  the  facts  as  recorded. 

"  If  we  deduct  from  the  seventy  souls,  who  went  down  into  Egypt,  the 
patriarch  Jacob,  his  twelve  sons,  Dinah,  and  Serah  the  daughter  of  Asher, 
and  in  addition  the  three  sons  of  Levi,  the  four  grandsons  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin  [Asher?]  and  those  grandsons  of  Jacob  who  probably  died 
without  male  oflfspring,  inasmuch  as  their  descendants  do  not  occur  among 
the  families  of  Israel  (see  Num.  xxvi.),  there  will  remain  forty-one  grand- 
sons of  Jacob  (besides  the  Levites)  who  founded  families.  If  now, 
according  to  1  Chron.  vii.  20,  etc.,  where  ten  or  eleven  generations  are 

*  Bibhsclier  Commentar  ii))er  die  Biicher  Mose's,  I.  p.  392. 


AT   THE   TIME   OF  THE   EXODUS.  145 

named  from  Ephraim  to  Joshua,  we  reckon  forty  years  to  a  generation, 
the  tenth  generation  of  the  forty-one  grandsons  of  Jacob  would  be  bom 
about  the  400th  year  of  the  residence  in  Egypt,  and  consequently  be  about 
twenty  years  old  at  the  Exodus.  Supposing  that  in  the  first  six  of  these 
generations  every  married  couple  had  on  an  average  three  sons  and  three 
daughters,  and  in  the  last  four  generations  each  married  couple  had  two 
sons  and  two  daughters,  there  would  have  been  in  the  tenth  generation, 
about  the  dOOth  year  after  the  descent  into  Egypt,  478,224  sons,  who 
could  be  over  twenty  years  of  age  at  the  Exodus,  whilst  125,326  men  of 
the  ninth  generation  might  be  still  living,  and  consequently,  478,224 -f 
125,326=603,550  men  over  twenty  years  old  could  leave  Egypt." 

Besides  what  has  already  been  said,  three  additional 
considerations  should  be  taken  into  the  account  in  esti- 
mating the  Mosaic  record  upon  this  subject. 

The  first  is,  the  promised  blessing  of  God.  Colenso, 
indeed,  ventures  the  statement,  (p.  162.) 

"We  have  no  reason  whatever,  from  the  data  furnished  by  the  sacred 
books  themselves,  to  assume  that  they  had  families  materially  larger  than 
those  of  the  present  day." 

And  after  having  said  this  he  tells  us  four  pages  later, 
that  according  to  the  data  of  the  sacred  books  ''  we  must 
suppose  that  each  man  had  forty-six  children  (twenty- 
three  of  each  sex),  and  each  of  these  twenty-three  sons 
had  forty-six  children,  and  so  on  I"  This  is  of  course  a 
grievous  misrepresentation ;  but  it  is  in  the  face  of  hii* 
own  words  nevertheless. 

The  burden  of  the  promises  to  the  patriarchs  was  the 
immense  multiplication  of  their  seed,  Gren.  xiii.  16,  xxii. 
17,  xlvi.  3.  And  how  marvellously  these  were  fulfilled, 
appears  not  only  from  the  actual  numbers  as  they  are 
recorded,  but  from  such  statements  as  Ex.  i.  7.  '  And 
the  children  of  Israel  were  fruitful,  and  increased  abun- 
dantly, and  multiplied,  and  waxed  exceedingly  mighty  ; 
and  the  land  was  filled  with  them.'     And  though  this 


146  THE   NUMBER   OF   ISRAELITES 

surprising  increase  excited  the  jealous  hostility  of  the 
king  of  Egypt,  and  measures  were  adopted  to  check  it, 
these  were  without  avail.  Ver.  12,  '  The  more  they 
afflicted  them,  the  more  they  multiplied  and  grew,'  ver. 
20.     '  The  people  multiplied  and  waxed  very  mighty.' 

The  second  consideration  is,  that  it  has  been  tacitly 
assumed  thus  flir,  that  all  of  Jacob's  descendants,  who 
were  living  at  the  time  of  going  down  into  Egypt,  were 
included  in  the  seventy  souls,  Gen.  xlvi.  27.  But  in  all 
probability  he  had  daughters  and  granddaughters,  who 
are  not  named  in  this  list.  On  this  point  Colenso  ob- 
serves : 

"It  is  certainly  strange  that,  among  all  the  sixty -nine  children  and 
grandchildren,  and  great-grandchildren  of  Jacob,  who  went  down  with 
him  into  Egypt,  thure  should  be  only  one  daughter  mentioned,  and  one 
granddaughter.  Tue  very  numbering  of  these  two  among  the  'seventy 
souls'  shows  that  the  females  '  out  of  the  loins  of  Jacob^  were  not  omitted 
intentionally  y 

"It  is  certain  : -vat  the  writer  intends  it  to  be  understood  that  these 
seventy  were  t;  i  C'^^y  persons,  and  these  two  the  only  females,  who  had  at 
that  time  been  cc^r.  ia  the  family  of  Jacob.  And  though  the  fact  itself  of 
this  wonderful  pr-  onderance  of  males  may  seem  very  strange,  and  would 
be  so  indeed  in  accaal  history  ;  it  is  only  another  indication  of  the  unbis- 
torical  character  of  the  whole  account." 

We  are  of  the  Bishop's  opinion  so  far  as  this,  that  we 
too  would  think  it  very  strange,  if  among  sixty-nine 
children  and  grandchildren  there  was  but  one  daughter, 
and  one  granddaughter.  "We  are  also  inclined  to  go 
with  him  one  step  further,  and  think  that  this  could  not 
have  been  so.  But  we  differ  from  him  in  this,  that  we 
do  not  believe  that  Moses  meant  to  represent  that  it  was 
so.  Especially  after  what  Colenso  himself  tells  us  of  an- 
other family  register,  though  he  at  the  same  time  tries  to 


AT   THE   IIME   OF   THE   EXODUS.  147 

save  the  credit  of  his  former  unproved  statement  by  dint 
of  confident  assertion : 

"  The  females  appear  to  be  omitted  purposely  in  Ex.  vi.  (as  we  see  by 
the  omission  of  Amram's  [Levi's  ?]  daughter,  Jochebed),  iJwugh  i/iey  could 
not  have  been  omitted  in  Gen.  xlvi.,  as  we  have  seen  above." 

If  Jochebed's  name  could  be  "omitted  purposely"  in 
the  account  of  Levi's  children,  Ex.  vi.  16,  v/hy  may  the 
names  of  daughters  not  have  been  omitted  elsewhere  ? 
And  why  is  it  not  more  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they 
were  omitted  purposely,  than  to  declare  the  "  whole 
account"  "  un historical,"  because  such  names  do  not 
appear  ?  In  all  the  genealogies  of  the  Bible  very  few 
daughters  are  mentioned,  and  whenever  any  are  spoken 
of,  it  always  appears  to  be  for  some  special  reason.  The 
rule  is,  to  omit  them  for  the  reason  that  they  were  not 
regarded  as  constituting  heads  of  families.  And  hence, 
Kum.  xxvii.  4,  the  daughters  of  Zelophehad  feared  that 
the  name  of  their  father  would  'be  done  away  from 
among  his  family,  because  he  had  no  son.' 

That  a  like  omission  occurred  in  Jacob's  ij.mily  register, 
Gen.  xlvi.,  is  probable,  1st.  From  the  general  analogy  of 
genealogies  and  family  lists  already  <j>:utioned.  2d. 
From  the  omission  of  other  female  membci^i  of  the  family, 
as  Jacob's  sons'  wives,  ver.  26.  3d.  Thi;-  is  perhaps  inti- 
mated in  ver.  23,  *  and  the  sons  of  Dan,  Iludhim.'  The 
plural  '  sons'  seems  to  imply  that  Dan  Lad  more  than 
one  child,  and  yet  only  one  is  mentioned ;  Avhy  were  the 
others  omitted,  unless  because  they  were  daughters  ?  The 
choice  lies  between,  this  understanding  oi  it,  and  sup- 
posing that  he  had  one  or  more  sons  subsequently  born 
in  Egypt,  or  that  the  plural  '  sons'  is  used  instead  of  the 
singular. 

The  fact  that  a  daughter  and  granddaughter  are  men- 


148  THE   NUMBER   OF   ISRAELITES 

tioned  does  not  prove  that  others  were  not  passed  over. 
There  may  have  been  special  reasons,  why  these  should 
not  be  named  which  did  not  apply  to  the  rest.  Dinah's 
unhappy  notoriety  might  account  for  the  mention  of  the 
name.  Or,  there  may  be  a  designed  significance  in  in- 
cluding one  daughter,  probably  the  first,  of  each  genera- 
tion in  this  primary  register  of  Israel.  As  we  have  seen 
that  there  was  a  symbolic  meaning  in  its  number  seventy, 
is  it  too  much  to  imagine  that  these  two  specimen  names 
taken  from  among  the  female  members  of  Jacob's  house- 
hold had  a  mystic  import  too  ?  These  also  are  of  Israel. 
As  the  number  seventy  points  forward  to  the  time  when 
there  shall  be  '  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,'  may  not  this  other 
feature  of  the  register  have  been  intended  to  prefigure 
the  great  gospel  fact  that  'there  is  neither  male  nor 
female ;  for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus  ?'  Gal.  iii.  28. 
A  third  consideration  is,  that  the  household  or  retinue 
of  the  patriarch  was  still  further  enlarged  by  numerous 
servants.  The  bond  and  the  free  were  blended  in  Israel, 
a  fact  which  also  had  its  significance  for  the  future,  1  Cor. 
xii.  13.  The  servants  of  Abraham  are  repeatedly  spoken 
of.  Gen.  xii.  5,  16,  xiii.  7,  xx.  14,  xxiv.  85 ;  that  these 
were  possessed  by  him  in  great  numbers,  appears  from 
his  having  318,  Gen.  xiv.  14,  who  were  trained,  and 
whom  he  could  arm.  We  also  read  of  Isaac's  herdmen, 
Gen.  xxvi.  20,  and  of  his  '  great  store  of  servants,'  ver. 
14.  And  while  Jacob  was  still  engaged  with  Laban,  it 
is  said.  Gen.  xxx.  43,  '  The  man  increased  exceedingly, 
and  had  much  cattle,  and  maid-servants  and  men-servants^ 
and  camels,  and  asses.'  Also,  in  his  message  to  his  bro- 
ther Esau,  he  spake  of  his  men-servants  and  his  ivomen- 
servaniSj  xxxii.  5.  Comp.  ver.  7,  16.  And  the  attack 
upon  the  city  of  Shechem  by  Simeon  and  Levi,  xxxiv. 


AT   THE   TIME   OF   THE   EXODUS.  149 

25-29,  certainly  was  not  made  single-handed.  Now 
when  Jacob  and  his  family  took  down  into  Egypt  '  their 
flocks  and  their  herds  and  all  that  they  had,''  xlv.  10,  xlvii. 
1,  how  can  this  possibly  be  understood  otherwise  than  as 
including  the  servants  which  Jacob  procured  of  his  own, 
as  well  as  those  which  he  inherited  from  his  father  ? 

It  is  a  mistake  to  overlook  the  fact  that  the  patriarchs 
were  really  such.  We  must  not  conceive  of  them  as 
wandering  about  with  an  insignificant  household  of  two, 
three,  or  a  dozen.  They  were  heads  of  numerous  and 
powerful  communities.  Abraham  is  addressed,  Gen. 
xxiii.  6,  as  a  '  mighty  prince'  (lit.  prince  of  God)  ;  and  he 
made  a  successful  attack  upon  a  band  of  pillaging  inva- 
ders, avenging  the  injury  done  his  kinsman,  and  driving 
them  beyond  the  borders  of  the  land,  xiv.  14,  etc.  The 
king  of  the  Philistines,  whose  army  is  incidentally  men- 
tioned. Gen.  xxvi.  26,  said  to  Isaac,  *  Thou  art  much 
mightier  than  we,'  ver.  16.  Such,  in  fact,  was  the  greatness 
of  the  patriarchal  community,  that  Joseph  could  expect  to 
be  understood  by  an  Egyptian  when  he  called  Canaan 
*  the  land  of  the  Hebrews,'  Gen.  xl.  15. 

The  analogy  of  collateral  tribes  or  nations  may  further 
confirm  the  view  which  is  here  taken.  Esau,  when  he 
met  Jacob  returning  from  Padan-Aram,  was  at  the  head 
of  400  men,  Gen.  xxxiii.  1.  This  was  a  part  of  the  band 
which  he  had  gathered  around  him,  and  from  which  the 
nation  of  Edom  was  derived.  Accordingly,  all  his  grand- 
sons were  dukes,  xxxvi.  15,  as  the  sons  of  Ishmael  were 
princes,  xxv.  16.  And  thus  we  read  of  '  a  company  of 
Ishmaelites '  as  early  as  the  days  of  Jacob,  xxxvii.  25. 

Now,  with  these  facts  before  us,  what  are  we  to  say  of 
the  fitness  of  a  man  to  comment  upon  the  Pentateuch  or 
its  history  who  can  talk  in  the  following  manner  (p.  176). 


150  THE   NUMBER   OF   ISRAELITES 

It  is  offered  in  reply  to  a  suggestion  of  Kurtz  substan- 
tially agreeing  with  what  has  been  said  above. 

"(i)  There  is  no  word  or  indication  of  any  such  a  cortege  having  accom- 
panied Jacob  into  Egypt. 

"  (ii)  There  is  no  sign  even  in  Gen.  xxxii,  xxxiii,  to  which  Kurtz  refers, 
where  Jacob  meets  with  his  brother  Esau,  of  his  having  any  such  a  body 
of  servants. 

"  (iii)  If  he  had  had  so  many  at  his  command,  it  is  hardly  hkely  that  he 
would  have  sent  his  darling  Joseph,  at  seventeen  years  of  age,  to  go,  all 
alone  and  unattended,  wandering  about  upon  the  veldt  in  search  of  his 
brethren. 

"  (iv)  These  are  also  spoken  of  as  'feeding  their  flocks,'  and  seem  to 
have  had  noue  of  these  '  thousands '  with  them,  to  witness  their  ill-treat- 
ment of  their  brother  and  report  it  to  their  father. 

"  (v)  Nothing  is  said  about  any  of  these  servants  coming  down  with  the 
sons  of  Jacob  to  buy  corn  m  Egypt,  on  either  of  their  expeditions. 

"  (vi)  Rather,  the  whole  story  implies  the  contrary, — '  they  speedily  took 
down  every  man  his  sack  to  the  ground,  and  opened  every  man  his  sack,' 
— '  then  they  rent  their  clothes,  and  laded  every  man  his  ass,  and  returned 
to  the  city,' — '  we  are  brought  in,  that  he  may  seek  occasion  against  us, 
and  take  us  for  bondmen,  and  our  asses,^  not  a  word  being  said  about  ser- 
vants' 

"  (vii)  In  fact,  their  eleven  sacks*  would  have  held  bid  a  very  scanty  sup- 
ply of  food  for  one  yearns  consumption  of  so  many  starving  thousands.'' 

"  (viii)  The  flocks  and  herds  did  not  absolutely  require  any  '  servants'  to 
tend  them,  in  the  absence  of  Jacob's  sons,  since  there  remained  at  home, 
with  the  patriarch  himself,  his  thirty-nine  children  and  grand-children,  as 
well  as  his  sons'  wives." 

What  has  all  this  rigmarole  to  do  with  the  subject,  and 
how  does  it  disprove  one  of  the  evidences  already  pre- 
sented of  the  possession  by  Jacob  of  numerous  servants? 
Because  there  is  no  express  mention  of  servants  in  the 

*  So  far  from  Joseph  thinking  that  "  eleven  sacks"  would  answer  for 
"  one  year's  consumption,"  he  sent  '  ten  asses  laden  with  the  good  things 
of  Egypt,  and  ten  she-asses  laden  with  corn  and  bread  and  meat  for  his 
father  hy  the  way,'  Gen.  xlv.  23, — just  to  support  him  during  the  journey 
down  from  Canaan ;  and  this  in  addition  to  the  provision  specially  given 
to  his  brethren  for  the  like  purpose,  ver.  2 1. 


AT  THE  TIME   OF  THE   EXODUS.  151 

two  trips  wliich  Jacob's  sons  ijiade  into  Egypt  to  buy 
corn,  therefore  they  were  unacoompaniei  by  servants, 
therefore  they  possessed  no  servants!  In  2  Chron. 
xxxvi.  6,  7,  we  read — 

'  Against  him  (Jehoiakim)  came  up  ]N"ebuchadnezzar 
king  of  Babylon,  and  bound  him  in  fetters,  to  carry  him 
to  Babylon.  Nebuchadnezzar  also  carried  of  the  vessels 
of  the  house  of  the  Lord  to  Babylon,  and  put  them  in 
his  temple  at  Babylon.' 

We  suppose  that  the  Bishop  understands  this  passage 
to  mean  that  Nebuchadnezzar  came  up  alone,  since  there 
is  no  mention  of  any  army,  or  even  of  any  attendants, 
and  that  he  personally  fettered  the  king  of  Judah,  and 
carried  off  the  vessels  of  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

These  servants  of  the  patriarchs  were  circumcised.  Gen. 
xvii.  12,  13,  and  thus  brought  within  the  pale  of  the 
covenant.  They  were  regarded  as  forming  part  of  their 
household,  vs.  23,  27,  and  were  to  be  instructed  to  'keep 
the  way  of  the  Lord,'  Gen.  xviii.  19.  The  circumcised 
stranger  and  the  native  Israelite  were  to  be  precisely  on 
a  par  in  all  religious  privileges,  Ex.  xii.  48,  49,  Lev.  xix. 
33,  34,  Num.  ix.  14,  xv.  14-16,  Deut.  xxix.  11.  Under 
these  circumstances,  the  distinction  between  the  family 
proper  and  the  household,  between  the  children  and  ser- 
vants of  the  patriarchs,  would  not  be  so  broad  as  modern 
usages  might  lead  us  to  imagine,  and  under  the  pressure 
of  a  common  bondage,  to  which  they  we-e  subjected  in 
Egypt,  might  easily  be  done  away  altog^rlier. 

Strangers  living  apart  in  their  independent  households 
might  attach  themselves  to  the  people  of  God.  They 
were  at  liberty  to  embrace  the  covenant  of  Israel,  submit 
to  its  requisitions,  and  share  its  blessings,  and  were 
thenceforward  reckoned  as  belonging  to  the  seed  of  Abra- 


152  THE   NUMBER   OF   ISRAJELITES 

ham.  *  Thou  shalt  not  abhor  an  Edomite,  for  he  is  thy 
brother.  Thou  shalt  not  abhor  an  Egyptian,  because 
thou  wast  a  stranger  in  his  land.  The  children  that  are 
begotten  of  them  shall  enter  into  the  congregation  of  the 
Lord  in  their  third  generation,'  Deut.  xxiii.  7,  8.  And 
it  is  remarked  as  a  peculiar  provision,  based  on  special 
reasons,  that  '  an  Ammonite  or  a  Moabite  shall  not  enter 
into  the  congregation  of  the  Lord;'  those  also  were 
excluded  who  had  been  guilty  of  idolatrous  self-mutila- 
tion, Deut.  xxiii.  1 — 3.  This  implies,  of  course,  the  pos- 
sibihty  of  admission  in  cases  where  there  is  no  such 
express  prohibition.  The  incorporation  of  other  nations 
with  Israel  formed  one  of  the  standing  objects  of  Mes- 
sianic expectation,  Isa.  xiv.  1,  Ivi.  6-8,  Ezek.  xlvii.  22, 
Zech.  viii.  23  :  it  could  not  therefore  have  been  contrary 
to  their  ancient  and  steadfast  traditions.  Now  if  these 
rights  and  privileges  were  accorded  to  foreigners  gene- 
rally, how  much  more  to  those  who  by  their  relation  of 
service  were  already  members  of  Israelitish  households. 

That  the  patriarchs  and  their  descendants  felt  it  to  be 
no  degradation  to  intermarry  with  their  servants,  appears 
from  the  case  of  Abraham  and  Hagar,  and  that  of  Jacob 
and  his  two  maids,  Bilhah  and  Zilpah.  Marriages  with 
servants  and  captives  taken  in  war  are  distinctly  contem- 
plated and  provided  for  in  the  law,  Ex.  xxi.  8-9,  Deut. 
XX.  14,  xxi.  11.  Colenso  supplies  us  with  another  fact 
in  point,  p.  167: 

'In  1  Chron.  ii.  34,  35,  we  read  that  Sheshau,  a  descendant  of  Judah 
in  the  ninth  generation,  '  had  a  servant,  an  Eg}'ptian,  whose  name  was 
Jarha ;  and  Sheshan  gave  his  daughter  to  Jarha  his  servant  to  wife,  and 
Bhe  bare  him  Attai,'  whose  descendants  are  then  traced  down  through 
twelve  generations,  and  are  reckoned,  apparently,  as  Israelites  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah.     From  this  it  would  seem  that  Hebrew  girls  might  be  married 


AT   THE   TIME   OF   THE   EXODUS.  163 

to  foreigners, — we  may  suppose,  proselytes, — and  their  children  would  then 
be  reckoned  as  *  children  of  Israel.'  " 

Such  marriages,  not  being  regarded  as  objectionable 
at  any  time,  would  be  still  more  likely  to  occur  in  Egypt, 
not  only  because  the  heavy  hand  of  oppression  was 
exerted  to  reduce  master  and  servant  to  a  level ;  but  with 
whom  else  could  they  be  contracted  ?  Colenso  puts  the 
case  in  the  following  terms,  pp.  164,  165,  though  with  a 
very  different  design  from  that  with  which  we  quote  his 
language. 

"  "With  the  story  of  Isaac's  and  Esau's  and  Jacob's  marriages  before  us, 
we  cannot  suppose  that  the  wives  of  the  sons  of  Jacob  generally  were 
mere  heathens.  Judah,  indeed,  took  a  Canaanitish  woman  for  his  wife  or 
concubine.  Gen.  xxxviii.  2.  But  we  must  not  infer  that  all  the  other 
brothers  did  likewise,  since  we  find  it  noted  as  a  special  fact,  that  Simeon 
had,  besides  his  other  five  sons,  '  Shaul,  the  son  of  a  Canaanitish  woman,' 
Gen.  xlvL  10." 

"But,  however  this  may  have  been,  we  must  suppose  that  in  Egypt, — 
at  all  events,  in  their  later  days,  for  a  hundred  years  or  more,  from  the 
time  that  their  afflictions  began, — such  friends  [viz.  their  relations  in 
Haran]  were  not  accessible.  "We  must  conclude,  then,  that  they  either 
took  as  wives  generally  Egyptian  heathen  women,  or  else  intermarried 
with  one  another.  The  former  alternative  is  precluded  by  the  whole  tone 
and  tenor  of  the  narrative.  As  the  object  of  the  king  was  to  keep  down 
their  numbers,  it  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  he  would  allow  them  to  take 
wives  freely  from  among  his  own  people,  or  that  the  women  of  Egypt,  (at 
least,  those  of  the  generation  of  Amram,  which  gave  birth  to  Moses,  and 
after  it),  would  be  willing  generally  to  associate  their  lot  with  a  people  so 
abject  and  oppressed  as  the  Hebrews." 

In  all  probability  long  before  the  term  of  the  Egyptian 
residence  was  reached,  all  distinction  between  the  direct 
descendants  of  the  patriarchs  and  their  several  retinues 
had  ceased.  The  posterity  of  all  blended  together  con- 
stituted the  600,000  men  who  went  up  out  of  Egypt 
under  the  leadership  of  Moses.     So  that  the  question  in 


154:  THE   NUMBER   OF   ISRAELITES 

actual  fact  is  not  how  could  this  enormous  increase  have 
arisen  from  70  souls,  but  rather  from  several  vast  house- 
holds of  dependents  and  retainers,  whose  numbers  we 
have  no  means  of  actually  estimating. 

It  might  be  added  to  this  that  considerable  numbers 
of  the  Egyptians  may  have  attached  themselves  to  Israel, 
not  as  "  heathen,"  but  won  by  the  splendour  of  the  pro- 
mises made  to  the  chosen  seed,  and  the  glorious  prospects 
before  them.  This  is  quite  as  possible  as  that  they  should 
be  deterred  by  their  externally  "abject  and  oppressed" 
condition.  In  fact  we  read  of  a  '  mixed  multitude,'  Ex. 
xii.  88,  Num.  xi.  4,  which  went  up  with  them.  And 
mention  is  made  Lev.  xxiv.  10,  of  'the  son  of  an 
Israelitish  woman,  whose  father  was  an  Egyptian.' 
1  Chron.  iv.  18,  speaks  of  'Bithiah  the  daughter  of 
Pharaoh,'  as  married  to  a  man  of  Judah  ;^  her  very  name, 
which  signifies  daughter  of  Jehovah^  implies  that  she  was 
a  convert  to  the  worship  of  the  true  God.  Moses  also 
married  an  Ethiopian  woman.  Num.  xii.  1. 

All  this  does  not  conflict  with  the  language  of  Deut. 
X,  22,  *  Thy  fathers  went  down  into  Egypt  with  three- 
score and  ten  persons ;  and  now  the  Lord  thy  God  hath 
made  thee  as  the  stars  of  heaven  for  multitude.'  Or  with 
Heb.  xi.  12,  '  Therefore  sprang  there  even  of  one,  and 
him  as  good  as  dead,  so  many  as  the  stars  of  the  sky  in 
multitude,  and  as  the  sand  which  is  by  the  sea-shore 
innumerable.'  It  is  obvious  that  such  general  and  rhe- 
torical statements  are  not  to  be  pressed  to  the  letter,  any 
more  than  the  figures  which  they  contain  are  to  be  abso- 
lutely pressed.     They  must  find   their    more    precise 


*  The  date  of  this  event  is  uncertain.     But  its  having  taken  place  at 
any  time  is  sufficient  for  the  purpose  for  which  it  is  here  adduced. 


AT   THE   TIME    OF   THE   EXODUS.  155 

explanation  and  limitation  in  the  facts  as  presented  in 
detail  elsewhere ;  and  some  of  these  facts  have  been  exhi- 
bited above.  The  lineal  descendants  of  the  patriarchs 
formed  the  nucleus  about  which  their  dependents  gravi- 
tated, and  gave  form  and  character  to  the  nation  thus 
created.  The  whole  composed  'the  house  of  Israel/  and 
were  included  amongst  '  the  seed  of  Abraham '  by  the 
organic  law  upon  which  that  seed  was  originally  consti- 
tuted. Gen.  xvii.  9-14. 


CHAPTER  XYI. 

THE    DANITES     AND    LEVITES    AT     THE     TIME     OF     THE 
EXODUS. 

But  if  the  increase  of  the  entire  people  can  be  thus 
satisfactorily  accounted  for,  how  is  it  with  the  individual 
tribes  ? 

"  Dan  in  the  first  generation  lias  one  son,  Husliim,  Gen.  xlvi.  23  ;  and, 
that  he  had  no  more  born  to  him  in  the  land  of  Egypt,  and,  therefore,  had 
only  one  son,  appears  from  Num.  xxvi.  42,  where  the  sons  of  Dan  consist 
of  only  one  family.  Hence  we  may  reckon  that  in  the  fourth  generation 
he  would  have  had  27  warriors  descended  from  him,  instead  of  62,700,  as 
they  are  numbered  in  Num.  ii.  26,  increased  to  64,400  in  Num.  xxvi.  43. 

"  In  order  to  have  had  this  number  born  to  him,  we  must  suppose  that 
Dan's  one  son,  and  each  of  his  sons  and  grandsons,  must  have  had  about 
80  children  of  both  sexes, 

""We  may  observe  also  that  the  offspring  of  the  one  son  of  Dan,  62,700, 
is  represented  as  nearly  double  that  of  the  ten  sons  of  Benjamin,  35,400, 
Num.  ii.  23." 

Dan  may  have  had  daughters  whose  descendants  were 
reckoned  as  belonging  to  their  brother's  family.  The 
same  would  have  been  the  case  if  he  had  had  other  sons 
born  to  him  in  Egypt,  for,  as  we  saw  in  Chapter  I.,  only 
those  descendants  of  the  patriarchs  who  were  living  at 
the  time  of  the  descent  into  Egypt  had  the  right  of 
giving  names  to  families.  The  old  fallacy  about  'the 
fourth  generation  ^  is  here  repeated  again.     If  Jacob's 


THE   DANITES    AND   LEVITES    AT   THE   EXODUS. 


157 


posterity   could  swell  to  upwards  of   600,000,   Dan's 
62,700  need  occasion  no  trouble. 

The  fact  that  the  numbers  of  each  tribe  in  the  days 
of  Moses  do  not  preserve  the  proportion  of  the  sons  of 
the  several  patriarchs  living  at  the  time  of  the  migration 
to  Egypt,  appears  to  Colenso  to  cast  doubt  upon  the 
truth  of  the  narrative.  To  our  minds  it  is  a  strong  confir- 
mation of  its  truth.  It  shows  that  these  numbers  have 
not  been  artificially  made  up.  If  they  had  been,  they 
would  have  been  framed  into  a  more  exact  correspon- 
dence. And  yet,  after  all,  there  is  no  reason  or  proba- 
bility in  the  expectation  that  the  ratio  existing  in  a  dozen 
families  430  years  ago  (about  the  time  when  Columbus 
was  born)  would  be  preserved,  or  even  approximated  in 
their  descendants  to-day.  This  free  variety  is  as  accord- 
ant with  nature  and  with  the  facts  of  observation  as  it 
is  unlike  fiction. 

The  following  tabular  statement  of  the  descendants  of 
Jacob  may  present  the  matter  to  the  eye  in  a  convenient 
form. 


Gen.  X 

ivi. 

Num.  xxvi. 

Num.  i. 

Num.  xxvi. 

Sons  and  Grandsons. 

Families. 

1st  Census. 

2d  Census. 

Reuben 

4 

4 

46,600 

43,730 

Simeon 

6 

6 

59,300 

22,200 

Levi 

3 

3 

22,000* 

23,000* 

Judah 

3    + 

2 

5 

74,600 

76,500 

Tssachar 

4 

4 

54,400 

64,300 

Zebulun 

3 

3 

57,400 

60,500 

Gad 

7 

7 

45,650 

40,500 

Aslier 

4  + 

2 

5 

41,500 

53,400 

*  The  Levites  were  numbered  from  a  mohth  old  and  upward,  and  are 
not  included  in  the  general  summation  of  the  children  of  Israel  given  in 
Num.  i.  46,  xxvi.  51.  There  were,  as  appears  from  Num.  iv.  48,  8,680 
between  30  and  50  years  of  age.  The  rest  of  the  tribes  were  numbered 
from  20  years  old  and  upward. 


1§8  THE   DANTTES    AND 

Gen.  xlvi.  Num.  xxvL 

Sons  and  Grandsons.  Families. 

\  Manasseh 


Joseph 

2  viz. 

(  Ephraira 

4 

Benjamin 

10 

7 

Dan 

1 

1 

Naphtali 

4 

4 

Num.  1. 

Num.  xxvi. 

1st  Census. 

2nd  Census. 

32,200 

52,700 

40,500 

32,500 

35,400 

45,600 

62,700 

64,400 

53,400 

45,400 

Total  51  +  4  60  625,550  624,130 

A  fresh  ground  of  complaint  is  found  in  the  genealogy 
of  the  three  sons  of  Levi — Gershon,  Kohath,  Merari. 

'•(i)  These  three  increased  in  the  second  {kmvam's)  generation  to  8,  (not 
to  9,  as  it  would  have  been,  if  they  had  had  each  three  sons  on  the  ave- 
rage,) viz.  the  sons  of  Kohath  4,  of  Gershon  2,  of  Merari  2,  Ex.  vi.  17-19. 

"  (ii)  The  4  sons  of  Kohath  increased  in  the  third  (Aaron's)  generation  to 
8,  (not  to  1 2,)  viz.  the  sons  of  Amrara  (Moses  and  Aaron)  2,  of  Izhar  3, 
of  Uzziel  3,  Ex,  vL  20-22.  If  we  now  assume  that  the  two  sons  of  Ger- 
shon^ and  the  two  sons  of  Merari  increased  in  the  same  proportion,  that  is, 
to  4  and  4  respectively,  then  all  the  male  Levites  of  the  third  generation 
would  have  been  16. 

•*  (iii)  The  two  sons  of  Araram  increased  in  the  fourth  (Eleazar's)  genera- 
tion to  6,  viz.  the  sons  of  Aaron  4,  (of  whom,  however,  two  died,  Num. 
iii.  2,  4.)  and  of  Moses  2.  Assuming  that  all  the  16  of  the  third  genera- 
tion mcreased  in  the  same  proportion,  then  all  the  male  Levites  of  the 
generation  of  Eleazar  would  have  been  48,  or  rather  44,  if  we  omit  the 
4  sons  of  Aaron  who  were  reckoned  as  Priests.  Thus  the  whole  number 
of  Levites,  who  would  be  numbered  at  the  first  census,  would  be  only  44, 
viz.  20  Kohathiies,  2  Gershonites,  12  Merariies,  instead  of  8,580,  as  they 
are  numbered  in  Num.  iv.  48,  viz.  2,750  Kohathites,  2,630  Gershonites,  and 
3,200  Merarites,  v.  36,  40,  44." 

The  Bishop  seems  to  have  expected  to  find  in  the 
genealogies  the  name  of  every  Israelite  who  was  living 
at  the  time  of  the  exodus.  If  the  whole  8,580  are  not 
put  down  in  the  genealogies,  they  could  not  have  existed. 
Upon  this  principle  we  would  be  obliged  to  have  a  book 
as  large  or  larger  than  a  New  York  directory,  simply  to 
record  the  names  of  the  people. 


AT  THE  TIME   OP  THE  EXODUS.  159 

But  again,  Colenso  himself  shows  us  that  these  geneal- 
ogies do  not  always  aim  at  completeness,  even  in  respect 
to  those  families  which  have  a  place  in  them. 

•*  In  Ex.  vL,  while  the  sons  of  Amram,  Izhar,  and  Uzziel  are  mentioned, 
no  sons  are  assigned  to  their  brother  Hebron.  In  Num.  iii.  27,  however, 
we  read  of  'the  family  of  the  Hebronites;'  and,  in  1  Chron.  xxiii.  19, 
four  sons  of  Hebron  are  mentioned. 

"  So  in  Ex.  vi.  21,  22,  the  sons  of  Izhar  are  (hree,  and  the  sons  of  Uz- 
ziel, fhree:  but  in  1  Chron.  xxiii.  18,  20,  Izhar  has  only  o;ie  son,  and 
Uzziel,  iwo." 

The  subject  seems  to  call  for  no  additional  remark, 
except  that  the  fallacy  of  the  *  fourth  generation '  is  here 
again  at  the  bottom  of  the  calculation. 

But  the  Bishop  tries  to  "  put  the  matter  in  another  and 
yet  stronger  light,"  as  follows : 

"  The  Amramites,  numbered  as  Levites  in  the  fourth  (Eleazar's)  genera- 
tion, were,  as  above,  only  two,  viz.  the  two  sons  of  Moses,  the  sons  of 
Aaron  being  reckoned  as  Priests.  Hence  the  rest  of  the  Kohathites  of 
this  generation  must  have  been  made  up  of  the  descendants  of  Izhar  and 
Uzziel,  each  of  whom  had  ihree  sons,  Ex.  vi.  21,  22.  Consequently,  since 
all  the  Kohathites  of  Eleazar's  generation  were  numbered  at  2,750,  Num. 
iv.  36,  it  follows  that  these  six  men  must  have  had  between  them,  accord- 
ing to  the  Scripture  story,  2,148  sons,  and  we  must  suppose  about  the 
same  number  of  daughters  1"* 

We  could  have  found  a  much  stronger  case  for  him 
than  this.  There  were  8  families  in  the  tribe  of  Manas- 
seh,  Num.  xxvi.  29-34,  numbering  in  all  52,700  men 

*  Another  instance  of  bad  faith,  for  it  admits  of  no  other  explanation, 
is  found  on  p.  179,  where  he  represents  Kurtz  as  "almost  driven  to  des- 
pair in  his  attempts  to  get  over  this  difficulty;"  and  adduces  in  proof  a 
quotation,  which,  torn  from  its  connection,  might  seem  like  a  refusal  to 
credit  the  Mosaic  narrative  on  account  of  its  incongruities,  but  which  is 
really  part  of  an  argument  exposing  the  absurdities  of  the  opinion  enter- 
tained by  the  Bishop  that  Moses  belonged  to  the  third  generation  from 
Levi. 


160  THE  DANTTES  AND  LEVITES 

over  twenty  years  of  age.  Assuming  that  these  were 
equal,  or  nearly  so,  each  family,  as,  for  example,  that  of 
the  Hepherites,  descended  from  Hepher,  ver.  82,  must 
have  numbered  about  6,587.  Now,  we  only  read  of 
Hepher's  having  one  son,  viz.  Zelophebad,  ver.  33, 
xxvii.  1 :  and  of  him  it  is  expressly  said  that  he  had  no 
sons,  but  five  daughters.  Hence  these  five  women,  them- 
selves daughters  of  a  man  who  '  died  in  the  wilderness,' 
Num.  xxvii.  3,  must  have  had  between  them,  according 
to  the  Scripture  story,  6,587  sons,  who  were  upwards  of 
twenty  years  old,  and  we  must  suppose  about  the  same 
number  of  daughters  I  Clearly,  arithmetic  is  a  wonder- 
ful thing. 

Such  results  are  to  sensible  minds  not  a  proof  of  the 
Bishop's  theorem,  but  a  reductio  ad  ahsurdum.  They 
prove  not  that  Moses  has  blundered  in  this  egregious 
way,  but  simply  that  Moses  and  Aaron  do  not  belong  to 
the  next  generation  from  Amram,  and  that  they  did  not 
compose  the  whole  of  his  descendants ;  and  so  Zelophe- 
bad could  not  have  been  the  immediate  and  only 
descendant  of  Hepher.  The  Bishop  is  simply  mistaken 
as  to  the  term  of  the  residence  in  Egypt,  and  the  number 
of  generations  there ;  that  is  all. 

The  cavil  based  on  the  fact  that  the  tribe  of  Levi  had 
increased  but  1,000  in  the  interval  of  thirty-eight  years, 
which  elapsed  between  the  first  and  second  census,  is  as 
groundless  as  those  which  we  have  been  considering. 
There  is  not  a  particle  of  proof  for  his  assertion  that  Levi 
was  not  included  in  the  curse  pronounced  on  all  the 
tribes,  that  the  men  who  were  upwards  of  twenty,  on 
leaving  Egypt,  should  die  in  the  wilderness.  He  speaks 
of  Eleazar  as  surviving  Joshua,  Josh.  xxiv.  33,  but  we 
do  not  know  that  he  was  over  the  fatal  age.     Aaron 


AT  THE  TIME  OF  THE  EXODUS.  161 

himself  was  debarred  from  Canaan,  like  all  the  rest. 
Some  of  the  tribes  increased  in  the  interval,  others 
decreased,  shewing  the  various  severity  of  the  plagues 
with  which  they  were  from  time  to  time  visited.  While 
most  of  the  tribes  remained  somewhere  in  the  region  of 
their  original  numbers,  Manasseh  increased  from  82,200 
to  52,700,  that  is  63f  per  cent,  in  38  years  or  13f  per 
cent,  in  10  years.  Inasmuch  as  "the  population  of  Eng- 
land increases  at  the  rate  of  about  23  per  cent,  in  10 
years,"  this  rate  will  not  be  esteemed  exorbitant.  On 
the  other  hand  Simeon  fell  off  from  59,300  to  22,200, 
showing  what  terrible  ravages  the  pestilence  had  made 
there  ;  as  a  prince  of  Simeon  was  prominent  in  the  affair 
of  Baal-peor,  Num.  xxv.  14,  that  tribe  had  doubtless 
suffered  most  severely  in  the  plague,  ver.  9,  which  shortly 
preceded  the  second  census,  xxvi.  1. 

The  chapter  which  we  are  reviewing,  fitly  closes  with 
the  following  extraordinary  paragraph  : 

"What  aro  we  to  say  of  the  whole  story  of  the  Exodus,  of  the  camping 
and  marching  of  the  IsraeUtes,  of  their  fighting  with  Amalek  and  Midian, 
of  the  44  Levites  slaying  3,000  of  the  children  of  Israel,  Ex.  xxxii.  28? 
....  How  were  the  20  Kohathites,  the  12  Gershonites,  and  the  12  Mera- 
rites,  to  discharge  the  offices  assigned  to  them  in  N.  iii.  iv,,  in  carrying  the 
Tabernacle  and  its  vessels, — to  do,  in  short,  the  work  of  8,580  men,  Num.  iv. 
48  ?  What  were  these  forty-four  people,  with  the  two  Priests,  and  their 
families,  to  do  with  the  forty-eight  cities  assigned  to  them,  Num.  xxxv.  1  ? 
How  could  the  Tabernacle  itself  have  been  erected,  when  the  silver  spent 
upon  it  was  contributed,  as  we  are  expressly  told,  by  a  poll-tax  of  half  a 
skekel,  Ex.  xxxviii.  26,  levied  upon  the  whole  body  of  603,550  warriors, 
who  did  not  exist  ?" 

Is  not  this  the  climax  of  outrageous  misrepresentation  ? 
"Where  does  Moses  say  anything  of  44  Levites,  20 
Kohathites,  etc.,  doing  what  is  here  imputed  to  them  ?     It 


162        THE   DANITES   AND   LEVITES   AT  THE  EXODUS. 

would  be  a  no  more  serious  distortion,  if  we  were  to  sub- 
stitute for  Colenso^  Bishop  of  Natal,  the  anagram  iV.  B. 
Choose  faiall  poison,  and  argue  from  that  the  deleterious 
nature  of  the  tenets  which  he  has  chosen  to  adopt,  or 
which  he  offers  to  the  choice  of  others. 


CHAPTER  XYII. 

THE  NUMBER  OF  PRIESTS  AT  THE  EXODUS  COMPARED 
WITH  THEIR  DUTIES,  AND  WITH  THE  PROVISION  MADE 
FOR  THEM. 

The  chapter  of  Colenso,  with  the  above  heading,  is  a 
repetition  of  his  old  method  already  practised  ad  naitseam 
of  framing  a  theory  at  variance  with  the  possibilities  of 
the  case,  and  then  representing  the  Mosaic  narrative  as 
incredible,  because  his  superficially  formed  theory  of  its 
meaning  is  so.  He  finds  that  the  priests  at  the  time  of 
the  Exodus  were  too  few  to  have  ofiered  the  numerous 
sacrifices,  and  performed  the  other  services  enjoined  by 
the  ritual.  Any  other  man,  under  these  circumstances, 
would  have  felt  it  incumbent  upon  him  to  institute  a 
careful  scrutiny  into  the  facts  of  the  case,  and  ascertain 
by  the  help  of  all  the  hints  which  can  be  gathered,  how 
the  matter  was  really  managed.  But  the  Bishop  is  above 
all  such  investigations.  He  is  ready  with  his  conclusion : 
the  Pentateuch  is  "  unhistorical." 

Upon  this  subject  we  commend  the  following  con- 
siderations to  candid  readers : — 

1.  The  ritual  prescriptions  of  the  Pentateuch  are 
largely  designed  for  the  future.  They  were  not  intended, 
as  their  very  nature  shows  in  a  multitiide  of  cases,  to 


164  THE  NUMBER   OF   PRIESTS, 

come  into  developed  operation  in  the  wilderness,  but 
anticipate  the  time  when  the  people  should  be  settled  in 
the  peaceable  and  secure  possession  of  Canaan.  This  is 
so  plain  that  the  Bishop  himself  admits  it,  p.  190. 

"  Then  follow  other  directions,  by  which  it  is  provided  that  the  Priest 
should  have  also  '  the  best  of  the  oil,  and  all  the  best  of  the  wine,  and  of 
the  wheat,  the  first  fruits  of  them,  which  they  shall  ofier  unto  Jehovah,' 
and  *  whatsoever  is  first  ripe  in  the  land ;'  which  laws  we  may  suppose 
were  intended  only  to  bo  applied,  wMn  the  people  had  become  settled  on 
their  farms  in  the  land  of  Canaan,  as  also  the  law,  ver.  25-29,  for  their 
receiving  also  a  tenth  of  the  tithes  of  corn  and  wine  and  oil,  which  were 
to  be  given  for  the  support  of  the  Levites." 

Again  (on  p.  188,)  he  refers  to  another  case,  in  which, 
if  he  states  the  facts  correctly,  the  same  inference  must 
be  drawn,  although  the  Bishop  is  of  another  mind. 

"  Turtle-doves  or  young  pigeons  are  prescribed  as  a  hghter  and  easier 
offering  for  the  poor  to  brmg ;  they  are  spoken  of,  therefore,  as  being  in 

abundance  and  within  the  reach  of  every  one In  the  desert,  it 

would  have  been  equally  impossible  for  the  rich  or  poor  to  procure  them." 

Colenso  infers  that  "such  laws  as  these  could  not  have 
been  written  by  Moses,  but  must  have  been  composed  at 
a  later  age,  when  the  people  were  already  settled  in 
Canaan,  and  the  poor  who  could  not  afford  a  lamb  could 
easily  provide  themselves  with  pigeons."  We  infer 
either  that  the  Bishop  is  mistaken  about  the  scarcity  of 
pigeons  in  the  wilderness,  or  that  this  provision  of  the 
law  was  not  to  take  effect  until  the  people  were  living 
where  pigeons  could  be  had. 

Moses  was  giving  law  for  the  entire  future.  He  had 
to  contemplate  the  circumstances  of  the  people,  therefore, 
a?  tl^ey  would  be  in  time  to  come.  The  regulations, 
which  were  impossible  in  their,  present  condition,  could 


THEIR   DUTIES   AND   THEIR   PERQUISITES.  165 

of  course  apply  to  the  future  only.  Before  we  give  our 
assent  to  the  Bishop's  conclusion,  we  would  like  him  to 
show,  that  according  to  the  Mosaic  record,  Aaron  and  his 
sons  actually  performed  or  were  expected  to  perform 
impossibilities  :  and  that  the  multitudinous  prescriptions 
with  which  it  was  beyond  their  power  to  comply,  were 
intended  to  go  into  operation  in  the  wilderness. 

2.  Not  only  the  language  of  the  law,  as  we  have  seen, 
but  the  statements  of  the  hiltory  show  that  the  wandering 
in  the  wilderness  was  a  provisional  period,  in  which  some 
of  even  the  most  important  of  the  requisitions  of  the 
ritual  were  in  abeyance.  Thus  we  learn  from  Josh.  v. 
4-7,  that  the  rite  of  circumcision  was  suspended  from  the 
time  the  children  of  Israel  left  Egypt  until  they  entered 
the  promised  land.  As  far  as  our  present  purpose  is 
concerned  it  does  not  matter  how  this  fundamental 
statute  came  to  be  set  aside  for  such  a  length  of  time. 
It  may  be  attributed  to  the  defection  and  culpable  neglect 
of  the  people,  or  to  a  divine  judicial  sentence  which 
temporarily  deprived  those,  who  had  broken  God's 
covenant,  of  the  possession  of  its  outward  seal,  or  to  a 
divine  leniency  which  suffered  the  pretermission  of  the 
rite  in  consequence  of  the  inconvenience  and  hazards 
with  which  it  would  be  attended  in  their  frequent 
journeying.  Upon  every  explanation  the  fact  remains 
that  one  of  the  most  essential  rites  of  the  Old  Economy 
was  wholly  omitted  in  the  wilderness. 

The  prophet,  Amos,  v.  25,  26,  implies  the  infrequencj 
of  sacrifices  in  this  period.  *  Have  ye  offered  unto  me 
sacrifices  and  offerings  in  the  wilderness  forty  years,  0 
house  of  Israel  ?'  The  Bishop  quotes  this  passage  as 
showing  "  that  in  the  prophet's  view,  at  all  events,  such 
sacrifices  were  required  and  expected  of  them."    Perhaps 


166  THE   NUMBER   OF   PRIESTS, 

SO,  and  perhaps  not.  Some  able  commentators  have  been 
of  a  different  opinion,  supposing  that  the  prophet  is 
drawing  a  contrast  between  the  paucity  of  the  sacrifices 
expected  and  received  from  their  fathers  during  a  period 
of  signal  divine  interposition  on  their  behalf,  and  the 
degeneracy  of  their  sons,  who,  with  all  the  multitude  of 
their  offerings,  had  nevertheless  provoked  the  divine 
displeasure,  and  should  suffer  a  signal  judgment. 

But  if  we  admit,  as  we  are  well  disposed  to  do,  that 
"  in  the  prophet's  view  such  sacrifices  were  required  and 
expected,"  it  will  be  still  more  damaging  to  the  Bishop's 
cause.  For,  in  the  first  place,  even  though  they  might 
have  been  "required,"  they  were  not  offered:  and  so  all 
the  difficulty  arising  from  the  supposed  inability  of  the 
priests  to  attend  to  them  ceases.  And,  in  the  second 
place,  we  have  here  an  unequivocal  testimony  on  the 
part  of  this  prophet  that  the  house  of  Israel  was  in  the 
wilderness  forty  years,  and  that  sacrifices  and  offerings 
were  "  required  and  expected  "  of  them  there.  If  this 
substantial  fact  is  true,  the  Pentateuch  cannot  be  false. 

Indeed,  when  we  consider  the  abundant  and  explicit 
references  which  both  Amos  and  Hosea,  not  to  speak  of 
the  other  prophets,  make  to  the  Pentateuch,  their  appeals 
to  the  facts  which  it  records  as  undeniably  true,  their 
allusions  to  its  statutes  as  of  binding  force  and  as  in 
actual  operation,  and  their  citations  of  its  very  language, 
we  are  obliged  to  confess  that  we  have  here  a  very  strong 
argument  both  for  the  Mosaic  composition  and  the  divine 
authority  of  the  first  five  books  of  the  Bible.  Hosea 
and  Amos  are  not  only  the  oldest  of  the  prophets  whose 
writings  are  preserved  to  ns,  but  their  ministry  was 
directed  to  the  apostate  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes.  This 
kingdom  had  been  in  a  state  of  hostility  with  Judah 


THEIR   DUTIES    AND   THEIR   PEEQUISITES.  1G7 

from  the  days  of  Eehoboam,  the  son  of  Solomon.  The 
ten  tribes  were  under  the  strongest  possible  temptation 
to  deny  and  disown  the  Pentateuch,  some  of  whose  most 
stringent  provisions  they  were  by  their  idolatry  and 
schism  habitually  disregarding.  And  yet,  here  we  see 
from  these  prophets  that  the  authority  of  the  Pentateuch 
was  acknowledged,  and  some  of  its  regulations  were  still 
in  existence  among  these  apostates.  If  it  was  not  of 
Mosaic  origin,  but  had  been  concocted  in  Judah  since 
the  time  of  the  schism,  how  came  it  to  be  accepted  by 
the  ten  tribes,  though  it  was  derived  from  a  hostile  peo- 
ple, and  its  commands  were  directly  in  the  face  of  their 
practice  and  their  political  interest  ?  No  hypothesis  can 
account  for  this,  except  that  the  Pentateuch  was  so 
firmly  credited  to  be  the  word  of  God  when  the  schism 
occurred  that  its  hold  upon  the  people's  minds  could  not 
be  shaken. 

And  if  so  thorough  a  conviction  of  its  truth  and  its 
divine  authority  existed  in  the  days  of  Solomon,  then  it 
unquestionably  is  what  it  professes  to  be,  the  genuine 
production  of  Moses.  It  could  not  have  been  forged  in 
the  days  of  David,  for  that  was  too  near  the  time  of  the 
schism  for  its  real  origin  to  have  been  forgotten  or  to 
have  escaped  the  knowledge  of  those  interested  in 
exposing  its  falsity.  It  could  not  have  been  forged  in 
the  turbulent  times  of  the  Judges  ;  that  is  the  very  last 
period  to  which  any  one  would  think  of  referring  the 
origin  of  such  a  cumbrous  and  minute  ceremonial  sys- 
tem. It  could  not  have  been  forged  in  the  days  of 
Joshua,  for  apart  from  the  military  character  of  tha 
period,  which  would  be  equally  unfavourable  to  the  pro- 
duction of  such  a  system  and  its  imposition  upon  the 
people,  that  was  too  near  the  time  of  Moses ;  how  could 


168  THE   If[JMBER   OF   PRIESTS,  ^ 

the  volume  gain  credit  when  every  adult  person  could 
have  borne  evidence  to  its  falsity?  There  is  no  time 
between  Solomon  and  Moses  to  which  the  origin  of  the 
Pentateuch  can  be  referred.  If  its  authority  was  undis- 
puted then,  in  the  time  of  Solomon',  it  is  all  that  it  claims 
to  be. 

8.  The  functions  strictly  belonging  to  the  priests  in 
the  work  of  sacrifice  were  few  and  simple.  The  victim 
was  slain  by  the  offerer  himself.  It  was  prepared  for 
the  altar  by  the  Levites.  Other  preliminaries  are  spoken 
of  as  committed  to  servants,  1  Sam.  ii.  13-15.  The 
strictly  sacerdotal  functions  were  sprinkling  some  of  the 
blood,  or  applying  it  with  the  finger  to  the  horns  of  the 
altar,  and  laying  the  prescribed  pieces  upon  the  altar 
fire ;  and  the  time  which  this  would  consume  in  the  case 
of  each  sacrifice  would  be  very  brief  indeed. 

4.  The  priesthood  was  in  a  transition  state  in  the  time 
of  Moses  and  Aaron.  Sacrifices  had  previously  been 
offered  by  every  head  of  a  family  for  his  own  household. 
The  tribe  of  Levi  was  set  apart  by  Moses  for  the  sacred 
ministries  of  the  tabernacle  ;  and  the  family  of  Aaron  for 
the  priesthood.  But  while  the  regulations  prescribed  in 
the  Pentateuch  define  what  the  permanent  law  was  to  be, 
may  not  the  transition  have  been  in  some  respects  a 
gradual  one,  so  far  at  least  that  the  Levites  who  were 
accepted  instead  of  the  first  born  of  all  the  people  may 
have  been  temporarily  allowed  to  aid  the  priests  even 
in  their  proper  functions,  if  they  were  at  any  time  over- 
burdened ?  This  would  certainly  have  some  remarkable 
analogies  in  its  favour.  Thus,  Solomon  in  the  profusion 
of  his  sacrifices,  finding  the  altar  inadequate,  did  not 
hesitate  to  depart  from  the  letter  of  ceremonial  require- 
ment by  sanctifying  another,  1   Kin.  viii.  64,  2  Chron.^ 


THEIR   DUTIES   AND   THEIR   PERQUISITES.  169 

vii.  7.  And  on  the  occasion  of  the  revived  ritual  zeal 
in  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  it  is  said,  2  Chron.  xxix.  34, 
that '  the  priests  were  too  few ;'  *  wherefore  their  brethren, 
the  Levites,  did  help  them  till  the  work  was  ended.' 
Compare  2  Chron.  xxxi.  2. 

The  allegation  that  the  provision  made  for  the  priests 
was  out  of  all  proportion  to  their  numbers,  also  over- 
looks the  fact  that  this  was  chiefly  a  prospective  arrange- 
ment designed  to  secure  the  comfortable  maintenance 
of  the  priests  in  all  time  to  come,  and  especially  when 
their  numbers  should  have  greatly  increased. 

In  making  the  charge  that  the  portions  set  apart  from 
the  offerings  for  the  use  of  the  priests  were  more  than 
they  could  possibly  consume,  Colenso  has  also  overlooked 
the  facts  that  they  were  not  compelled  to  eat  any  more 
than  they  desired,  and  that  these  things  were  to  be  partaken 
of  not  only  by  the  '  three  priests,'  but  also  by  their  sons, 
and  in  some  cases,  by  their  daughters  also,  and  their 
entire  households  ;  '  every  one  that  is  clean  in  thine  house 
shall  eat  of  it,'  Num.  xviii.  11 ;— and  even  by  the  Levites 
generally,  as  we  read  Deut.  xviii.  1,  'The  priests  the 
Levites  and  all  the  tribe  of  Levi  shall  have  no  part  nor 
inheritance  with  Israel ;  they  shall  eat  the  offerings  of 
the  Lord  made  by  fire  and  his  inheritance.' 

Since  the  preceding  pages  were  in  type,  we  learn  from 
the  newspapers  that  the  Bishop  has,  in  a  subsequent 
volume  just  issued,  announced  his  discovery,  that  the 
Pentateuch  was  written  by  the  prophet  Samuel.  What 
the  Christian  world  has  hitherto  regarded  as  the  work  of 
Moses,  turns  out,  it  seems,  in  the  light  of  his  investigations 
to  be  a  summary  of  ancient  traditions  compiled  by  Sa- 
muel for  the  religious  benefit  of  his  contemporaries. 

It  would  have  been   wiser-for   the   Bishop   to   have 


170  THE    NUMBER    OF    PEIESTS, 

adhered  to  the  negative  ground  maintained  in  the  volume 
which  we  have  been  reviewing.  As  long  as  he  contented 
himself  with  merely  finding  fault  with  current  opinions, 
without  suggesting  any  substitute  of  his  own,  he  put  his 
antagonists  on  the  defensive,  and  could  select  or  vary  his 
point  of  attack  at  pleasure.  In  venturing  a  positive 
assertion  of  his  own,  however,  he  foregoes  this  advantage 
and  lays  himself  open  to  attack  in  turn.  The  question 
can  immediately  be  raised,  whether  the  view  which  he 
proposes  possesses  any  advantage  over  that  which  has 
always  been  held — whether  it  may  not  be  encumbered 
with  difficulties  quite  as  serious  as  that  which  we  are 
requested  to  discard  for  its  sake. 

As  we  have  not  seen  this  second  publication  of  Colenso, 
we  do  not  know  the  precise  form  of  the  hypothesis  which 
he  adopts,  nor  the  nature  of  the  arguments  upon  which 
he  professes  to  rest  it.  We  are  not  sure,  for  example, 
whether  he  regards  Samuel  as  the  author  of  the  entire 
Pentateuch  in  its  present  form,  or  as  one  of  a  series  of 
writers  amongst  whom  the  dissecting  processes  of  the 
German  so-called  higher  criticism  has  parcelled  it.  In 
either  case  he  has  made  a  faux  pas,  and  will  have  to 
guess  again. 

Having  entered  upon  these  studies  so  recently  he  may 
perhaps  be  pardoned  for  not  knowing  the  risk  he  was 
running  in  venturing  any  assertion  in  the  case.  In  fact 
the  great  trouble  with  that  whole  school  of  critics,  whose 
humble  disciple  he  has  now  become,  is  not  in  disproving 
the  Mosaic  origin  of  the  Pentateuch.  That  is,  upon  their 
principles,  an  easy  task.  The  Pentateuch  cannot  be  the 
work  of  Moses,  because  in  that  case  it  would  necessarily 
be  a  supernatural  revelation,  and  a  supernatural  revela- 
tion is  impossible.     The  case  is  prejudged,  therefore,  and 


THEIR    DUTIKS    AND    TIIKIK    PEKQUISITES.  171 

the  whole  matter  settled  in  advance.  The  real  trouble 
is  in  knowing  how  to  dispose  of  the  Pentateuch  after  they 
have  taken  it  away  from  Moses.  They  are  in  much  the 
same  predicament  as  the  man,  to  whom  some  inconside- 
rate friend  had  made  the  present  of  an  elephant ;  he  had 
the  animal  on  his  hands  and  what  in  the  world  was  he  to 
do  with  it  ? 

The  Pentateuch  is  here.  It  must  have  originated  at 
some  time.  It  must  have  been  written  by  somebody. 
The  critics  tell  us  that  Moses  was  not  its  author,  and 
that  it  was  not  composed  in  the  Mosaic  age.  Very  well. 
When,  and  by  whom  was  it  written  ?  The  propound- 
ing of  this  question  raises  a  Babel-like  confusion  in  the 
host  where  all  seemed  "unanimity  and  harmony  before. 
Kothing  can  be  more  hopeless  and  inextricable  than  the 
entanglements  which  are  thus  created.  Theory  has  suc- 
ceeded theory,  and  hypothesis  followed  hypothesis,  until 
Milton's  description  of  chaos  seems  to  have  been  real- 
ized. Each  phase  of  the  subject  lasts  only  till  some 
fresh  critic  has  had  time  to  write  a  book,  and  substi- 
tute some  new  mystification  of  his  own  for  that  which 
had  reigned  previously.  And  the  end  is  not  yet.  The 
difficulty  is  inherent  in  the  subject.  If  the  pyramids  of 
Ghizeh  be  taken  off  of  their  base,  it  will  require  marvellous 
skill  in  engineering  to  balance  them  upon  their  apex.  If 
the  history  of  Grerman  critical  hypotheses  in  relation  to 
the  Pentateuch  has  demonstrated  any  thing,  it  demon- 
strates that  no  plausible  and  self-consistent  theory  can  he 
framed  of  the  origin  of  the  Pentateuch^  which  denies  its  com- 
position hy  Moses. 

As  to  this  particular  theory  of  the  Bishop,  which  con- 
nects it  with  the  name  of  Samuel,  we  cannot  of  course 
undertake  its  refutation  in  this  place,  for  we  have  only  a 


172  THE   NUMBEli   OF   PKIESTS, 

very  indefinite  notion  of  wliat  the  tlieorj  really  is.  He 
either  thinks  that  Samuel  was  the  author  of  the  Penta- 
teuch in  its  entire  compass  and  in  its  present  form,  or 
that  while  Samuel  wrote  certain  parts  of  it,  its  piecemeal 
composition  was  not  brought  to  a  close  by  him,  and  was 
not  finally  finished,  perhaps,  until  long  afterwards.  In 
the  latter  case,  the  argument  maintained  above  still 
stands.  The  Pentateuch  in  its  present  form  and  compass 
did  not  even  upon  the  Bishop's  theory  originate  in  the  in- 
terval between  Solomon  and  Moses  :  and  he  will  have  to 
explain  how  it  came  to  possess  that  consideration  and 
authority  in  the  kingdom  of  the  ten  tribes,  which  we 
learn  from  Amos  and  Hosea  that  it  did  possess. 

If,  however,  Samuel  was  the  author  of  the  Pentateuch, 
as  we  now  have  it,  he  will  have  to  explain  : 

1.  How  the  traditions,  of  which  this  is  supposed  to  be 
a  record,  could  have  originated  and  have  been  so  firmly 
credited  in  Israel  and  by  Samuel  himself,  if  they  are 
utterly  untrue. 

2.  How  a  good  man,  as  Samuel  is  supposed  to  have 
been,  could  have  attempted  to  palm  off  a  book  which  he 
prepared  himself  for  the  religious  benefit  of  his  contem- 
poraries, as  a  production  of  the  great  Hebrew  legislator, 
Deut.  xxxi.  9,  24. 

3.  How  he  could  succeed  in  making  his  contempora- 
ries believe  that  a  detailed  history  and  an  extensive  code 
of  laws  produced  by  himself,  had  not  only  been  in  ex- 
istence for  ages,  but  had  been  the  basis  of  their  national 
constitution,  and  had  all  along  been  in  the  custody  of  the 
Priests  to  whom  it  was  committed,  and  had  been  pub- 
licly read  to  themselves  every  seventh  year,  Deut.  xxxi. 
11. 

4.  How,  after  opposing  the  wishes  of  the  people  in 


THEIK    DUTIP:S    AND    THEIR    PEKQUISITES.  173 

their  desire  to  have  a  King  and  remonstrating  with  them 
upon  its  sin  and  its  impropriety,  1  Sam.  viii.,  he  could 
write  a  book  representing  the  founder  of  the  Hebrew- 
State  contemplating  without  disapproval  the  establish- 
ment of  a  kingdom,  Daut.  xvii.  14-20. 

5.  How  Samuel  could  be  the  author  of  a  minute  and     .*( 
extensive  system  of  laws,  the  fundamental  principle  of     ^ ' 
which  restricted  the  offering  of  sacrifices  to  the  Aaronio 
priesthood  and  to  the  place  of  the  sanctuary,  and  which     ^ 
made  the  ark  of  the  covenant  prominent  as  the  centre  of     {/ 
all  religious  service,  when  during  nearly  the  whole  of  his    ||| 
life  the  ark  was  in  obscurity,  1  Sam.  vii.  1,  2  ;  2  Sam.     '  I 
vi.  4,  and  almost  the  only  sacrifices  of  which  we  hear  were    ;  i 
offered  by  himself,  though  he  was  not  descended  from    \J\ 
Aaron,  1  Sam.  vii.  9,  10 ;  viii.  etc.  etc.,  and  these,  more-    ' 
over,  were  never  offered  at  the  Sanctuary. 


CHAPTER  XYIII. 

THE  PRIESTS  AND  THEIR  DUTIES  AT  THE   CELEBRATION 
OF   THE   PASSOVER. 

Next  follows  an  attempt,  which  if  we  might  do  so 
without  disrespect,  we  would  call  a  very  clumsy  one,  to 
create  a  difficulty  without  even  the  semblance  of  a 
ground  for  it  in  the  statements  of  Moses. 

"We  are  told,  2  Chron.  xxx.  16,  xxxv,  11,  that  the  people  killed  the 
Passover,  but  *  the  Priests  sprinkled  the  Ihod  from  their  hands,  and  the 
Levites  flayed  them.'  Hence,  when  they  kept  the  second  passover  under 
Sinai,  Num.  ix.  5,  where  we  must  suppose  that  150,000  lambs  were 
killed  at  one  time  '  between  the  two  evenings,'  Ex.  xii.  6,  for  the  two  mil- 
lions of  people,  each  Priest  must  have  had  to  sprinkle  the  blood  of  50,000 
lambs  in  about  two  hours,  that  is,  at  the  rate  of  about  four  hundred  lambs 
every  minute  for  two  hours  together.^- 

Because  seven  or  eight  centuries  afterwards,  when  the 
priests  formed  a  numerous  body,  they  had  assumed  the 
charge  of  the  whole  ceremonial,  as  far  at  least  as  they 
were  capable  of  doing  so,  therefore  the  three  priests  of 
Aaron's  days  must  have  done  the  same  in  spite  of  the 
physical  impossibility.  And  this  impossibility  of  the 
Bishop's  own  getting  up  proves  not  that  he  is  mis- 
taken, but  that  Moses  is  "  unliistorical."  Iso  further 
reply  is  necessary  than  is  furnished  by  the  admission 
(p.  202), 


THE  PRILSIS  AT  lil.C  Cu.LEBRATION  OF  THE  PASSOVER.    175 

"  It  is  certainly  true  that  the  references  to  the  passover  in  the  books  of 
Exodus  and  Numbers,  do  iwt  appear  to  imply  in  any  way  that  the  priests 
were  called  into  action  in  the  celebration  of  this  feast." 

The  same  remark  applies  likewise  to  the  additional 
difficulty,  which  is  pretended  here,  viz.  that  the  court  of 
the  tabernacle  did  not  afford  space  enough  for  the 
slaughtering  of  all  the  lambs  which  must  have  been  slain 
at  the  passover. 

"  In  the  time  of  Hezekiah  and  Josiah,  when  it  was  desired  to  keep  the 
Passover  strictly,  '  in  such  sort  as  it  was  written,'  2  Ciiron.  xxx,  5,  the 
lambs  were  manifestly  killed  in  the  Court  of  the  Temple.  We  must  sup- 
pose, then,  that  the  Paschal  lambs  in  the  wilderness  were  killed  in  the 
Court  of  the  Tabernacle^  in  accordance,  in  fact,  with  the  strict  injunctions 
of  the  Levitical  Law,  that  all  burnt-offerings,  peace-offerings,  sin-offerings, 
and  trespass-offerings,  should  be  killed  'before  Jehovah,'  at  the  door  of  the 
Tabernacle  of  the  Congregation." 

"But  the  area  of  that  Court  contained,  as  we  have  seen,  only  1,692 
square  yards,  and  could  only  have  held,  when  thronged,  about  5,000  peo- 
ple. How  then  are  we  to  conceive  of  150,000  lambs  being  killed  within 
it  by,  at  least,  150,000  people,  in  the  space  of  two  hours, — that  is,  at  the 
rate  of  1,250  lambs  a  minute  f 

The  books  of  Moses  do  not  say  one  word  about  the 
slaying  of  the  passover  lambs  in  the  court  of  the  taberna- 
cle. No  direction  is  given  to  that  effect.  No  statement 
is  made  implying  it.  But,  says  our  reasoner,  Hezekiah 
and  Josiah  desired  to  keep  the  passover  '  in  such  sort  as 
it  was  written ;'  and  the  lambs  were  then  killed  in  the 
court  of  the  temple ;  therefore  it  must  be  written  in  the 
books  of  Moses,  that  they  should  be  killed  in  the  court 
of  the  tabernacle,  although  we  have  these  books  in  our 
hands,  and  can  see  for  ourselves  that  they  contain 
nothing  of  the  sort !  Why  does  not  the  Bishop  argue 
that  the  Mosaic  passover  must  have  been  kept  at  Jerusa- 
lem, because  Hezekiah  and  Josiah  kept  it   '  as  it  w^as 


170  TBE    PKIESTS    AND   THEIR    DUTIES 

written,'  and  they  kept  it  at  Jerusalem?  The  Mosaic 
directions  about  the  passover  are  contained  Ex.  xii. 
1-28,  and  there  is  not  one  word  about  the  tabernacle  or 
the  priests  in  the  entire  passage.  Upon  its  second 
observance  no  new  regulations  were  given  ;  the  people 
were  simply  referred  to  what  had  been  enjoined  upon 
them  before.  "  Ye  shall  keep  it  in  his  appointed  season ; 
according  to  all  the  rites  of  it,  and  according  to  ail  the 
ceremonies  thereof  shall  ye  keep  it,"  Num.  ix.  3. 

But  in  order  to  prove  that  the  passover  must  be  slain 
in  the  court  of  the  tabernacle,  and  that  its  blood  must  be 
sprinkled  by  the  priests,  Colenso  refers  us  to — 

*'  this  most  solemn  command  laid  down  in  Lev.  xvii.  2-6,  with  tlie 
penalty  of  death  attached  for  disobedience." 

"  This  is  the  thing  which  the  Lord  hath  commanded,  saying,  "What  man 
soever  there  be  of  the  House  of  Israel,  that  hilleth  an  ox,  or  lamb,  or  goat, 
in  the  Camp,  or  that  killeth  it  out  of  the  Camp,  and  hringeth  it  not  unto  the 
door  of  the  Tabernacle  of  the  Congregation,  to  offer  an  offering  unto  the 
Lord,  before  the  tabernacle  of  the  Lord,  blood  shall  be  imputed  unto  that 
man,  he  hath  shed  blood,  and  that  man  shall  he  cut  off  from  among  his  peo- 
ple;  to  the  end  that  the  children  of  Israel  may  bring  their  sacrifices,  which 
they  offer  in  the  open  field,  even  that  they  may  bring  them  unto  the  Lord, 
unto  the  door  of  the  Tabernacle  of  the  Cong7'€gation,  unto  the  Priest,  and  offer 
them  for  peace-offerings  unto  the  Lord.  And  the  Priest  shall  sprinkle  the 
blood  upon  the  Altar  of  the  Lord,  at  the  door  of  the  Tabernacle  of  the  Congre- 
gation, and  burn  the  fat  for  a  sweet  savour  unto  the  Lord." 

This  quotation  is  neither  pertinent  to  the  question,  nor 
is  it  honestly  made.  There  is  not  the  slightest  allusion 
in  it  to  the  passover.  The  regulation  prohibits  sacrifices 
from  being  offered  in  the  open  field,  or  anywhere  but  at 
the  prescribed  place  for  sacrificial  worship.  It  was 
designed  to  guard  against  the  idolatry  to  which  Israel 
was  prone,  and  into  which  the  people  were  already 
falling.     AVhy  does  the  Bishop  seek  to  hide  this  from  his 


AT   TIIK   CELEBRATION    OF   THE  PASSOVER.  177 

readers  by  breaking  oJff  his  quotation  wliere  he  does, 
when  the  very  next  words  would  have  shown  that  the 
statute  has  relation  to  a  very  different  subject  from  that 
to  which  he  applies  it  ?  The  thing  to  be  prevented  is 
declared  in  ver.  7,  '  And  they  shall  no  more  offer  their 
sacrifices  unto  idols,  after  whom  they  have  gone  a 
whoring.'  What  is  there  in  this  to  intimate  that  the 
passover  was  to  be  observed  differently  from  the  law  of 
its  original  institution,  especially  when  this  would  have 
encumbered  its  observance  with  a  physical  impossi- 
bility ? 

We  pass  to  the  last  count  in  the  indictment. 


8* 


CHAPTER  XIX. 

THE  WAR  ON  MIDIAN. 

Before  proceeding  to  tlie  proper  theme  of  this 
chapter,  our  author  reviews  his  work  with  a  gratified 
complacenc}^ ;  and  iu  the  course  of  this  review,  he 
indulges  in  a  fling  at  *'the  extravagant  statements  of 
Hebrew  writers,"  or  the  "  systematic  habit  of  exaggera- 
tion in  respect  of  numbers,  which  prevails  among 
Hebrew  writers  of  historj^,"  and  which  he  alleges  to  be 
"more  especially  true  of  the  Chronicler." 

We  can  scarcely  be  expected,  at  the  close  of  this  dis- 
cussion, to  enter  thoroughly  into  the  refutation  of  a 
random  remark  of  this  kind,  which  has  no  connection 
with  the  subject  properly  in  hand.  Nor  do  we  deem  it 
necessary  to  trouble  either  ourselves  or  our  readers  with  a 
particular  examination  of  the  numbers  taken  from  the 
books  of  Judges,  Samuel,  and  Chronicles,  upon  which  he 
professes  to  found  it.  He  has  presented  no  reasons  for 
discrediting  these  numbers ;  they  only  appear  to  him  to 
be  too  large.  If  our  experience  of  his  accuracy  and 
reliability  has  not  been  such  as  to  warrant  our  taking  all 
his  dicta  upon  trust,  and  if  we  are  not  w^illing  to  condemn 
the  sacred  writers  upon  bare  suspicion  and  without 
investigation,  we  can  scarcely  renounce  their  authority  so 
summarily  as  he  would  have  us   do.      We  would   be 


THE    WAR   ON    MIDIAN.  179 

obliged  to  institute  a  careful  inquiry  into  the  circum- 
stances of  each  individual  case,  and  compare  them  with 
other  well  authenticated  cases  of  like  description,  in  the 
ancient  world,  before  we  could  have  reliable  data  for 
testing  the  accuracy  of  the  numbers  in  question.  And 
even  if  this  should  result  in  our  admission  of  a  probable 
error  in  one  or  more  of  these  €ases,  we  would  still  further 
have  to  extend  our  investigation  into  the  numbers  of  the 
Bible  generally,  before  we  could  frame  a  certain  and 
reliable  theory  as  to  the  source  of  such  errors,  or  at  any 
rate  before  we  could  be  justified  in  imputing  them  to  a 
"  systematic  habit  of  exaggeration." 

"We  have  no  intention  of  going  into  such  a  protracted 
disquisition  at  present.  But  since  the  author  of  the 
books  of  Chronicles  has  been  singled  out  as  especially 
obnoxious  to  the  charge  of  systematic  exaggeration,  we 
may  be  indulged  with  a  few  remarks  upon  the  subject. 

1.  The  differences  in  numbers  between  the  narrative 
in  Chronicles  and  the  parallel  account  in  Samuel  and 
Kings,  have  often  been  made  an  occasion  of  needless 
cavil.  But  it  should  be  remembered  that  every  differ- 
ence does  not  establish  a  discrepancy.  Thus  in  2  Sam. 
xxiv.  24,  it  is  said  that  David  bought  the  threshing-floor 
of  Araunah  the  Jebusite  and  the  oxen  for  fifty  shekels 
of  silver.  But  1  Chron.  xxi.  25,  detailing  the  same 
transaction,  affirms  that  David  gave  for  the  place  six 
hundred  shekels  of  gold.  This  apparent  conflict,  how- 
ever, is  easily  reconciled  by  observing  that  the  one  price 
was  paid  for  the  threshing-floor  simply,  the  other  for  the 
entire  place,  including  the  whole  of  the  future  temple- 
area  and  probably  all  Mount  Moriah. 

2.  In  those  comparatively  few  instances,  in  which 
there  appears  to  be  a  real  discrepancy,  the  author  of 


ISO  THE   WAR    ON    MIDI  AN. 

Chronicles  is  so  fiir  from  a  "  systematic  liabit  of  exaggera- 
tion "  that  he  not  infrequently  has  the  smaller  instead  of 
the  larger  number.  Thus  according  to  2  Chron.  ix.  25, 
Solomon  had  4,000  stalls  for  horses,  but  according  to  1 
Kings  iv.  26,  he  had  40,000.  The  Hachmonite,  who  was 
chief  of  David's  captains,  '  lifted  up  his  spear  against  300 
slain  by  him  at  one  time,'  1  Chron.  xi.  11;  in  2  Sam. 
xxiii.  8,  he  is  said  to  have  slain  800  at  one  time.  Gad 
offered  to  David  from  the  Lord  a  triple  choice  of  evils ; 
among  them,  according  to  1  Chron.  xxi.  12,  was  3  years' 
famine ;  2  Sam.  xxiv.  13,  has  it  7  years. 

3.  There  is  sometimes  reason  to  believe  that  the  text 
of  Chronicles  has  the  correct  numbers,  even  when  they 
are  larger  than  those  which  are  found  in  the  parallel  his- 
tories. According  to  2  Sam.  viii.  4,  David  took  from 
Hadad-ezer  a  thousand  and  seven  hundred  horsemen,  and 
twenty  thousand  footmen ;  1  Chron.  xviii.  4  has  it  1,000 
chariots  and  7,000  horsemen,  and  20,000  footmen.  Here 
the  numbers  are  greater  in  Chronicles,  and  yet  a  better 
proportion  is  preserved  between  the  different  branches  of 
the  service.  And  hence  the  common  opinion  is  that  the 
correct  statement  is  the  one  found  in  Chronicles.  That 
this  was  the  judgment  of  the  translators  of  the  authorized 
English  version,  appears  from  their  having  inserted  in 
Samuel  the  word  'chariots'  taken  from  the  text  of 
Chronicles,  though  they  did  not  venture  to  make  any 
change  in  the  numbers.  It  thus  becomes  1,000  chariots 
and  700  horsemen,  making  the  horsemen  inferior  in 
number  to  the  chariots,  which  is  less  probable  than  that 
there  were  7,000  horsemen  as  stated  in  Chronicles.  So 
in  the  numbering  of  the  people  by  David,  1  Chron. 
xxi.  5  gives  to  Israel  1,100,000  and  to  Judah  470,000 
men  capable  of  bearing  arms:    according   to   2   Sam 


THE    WAK   ON   MIDI  a N.  181 

xxiv.  7  Israel  bad  800,000,  and  Judali  500,000.  The 
number  assigned  to  Judah  in  the  two  accounts  does  not 
differ  materially,  but  that  attributed  to  the  remaining 
tribes  is  considerably  larger  in  Chronicles.  And  yet  the 
probability  is  in  favour  of  the  statement  in  the  latter, 
because  it  seems  more  likely  than  that  Judah  was  so 
nearly  an  equivalent  for  all  the  rest  of  the  tribes  as  the 
numbers  of  Samuel  would  make  it. 

4.  Where  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  number 
in  the  existing  text  of  Chronicles  is  too  large,  a  disposition 
to  exaggerate  cannot  with  any  probability  be  imputed  to 
the  writer.  One  of  the  most  remarkable  cases  of  this 
sort  occurs,  as  cited  by  the  Bishop,  "  in  2  Chron.  xiii.  3, 
where  Abijah's  force  consisted  of  400,000  and  Jero- 
boam's of  800,000,  and  Judah  slew  Israel,  ver.  17,  '  with 
a  great  slaughter;  so  there  fell  down  slain  of  Israel 
600,000  chosen  men.'  "  Kow  although  it  is  quite  likely 
that  there  were  as  many  men,  as  is  here  stated,  in  the 
two  kingdoms  capable  of  bearing  arms,  it  is  not  very 
credible  that  they  could  all  have  been  brought  into  active 
service  at  one  time.  And  at  any  rate  the  slaughter  of 
500,000  men  on  one  side  in  a  single  engagement,  or  even 
in  a  whole  campaign,  is  so  enormous  that  we  are  forced 
to  suspect  that  there  must  be  some  mistake  in  the  num- 
bers. 

Again,  "  Asa's  force  consisted  of  580,000  ...  2  Chron. 
xiv.  8,  Jehoshaphat's  of  1,160,000  '  besides  those  whom 
the  king  put  in  all  the  fenced  cities  throughout  all 
Judah,'  2  Chron.  xvii.  14-19."  This  is  so  much  larger 
than  the  armies  in  the  same  kingdom  were  at  other 
periods,  and  even  than  we  can  suppose  to  have  been 
raised  in  a  kingdom  of  the  extent  of  Judah,  that  there  is 
probably  an  error  somewhere. 

8* 


132  THE    WAR   ON    MIDiAN 

But  if  the  writer  was  given  to  exaggerating  beyond  all 
bounds,  and  was  tempted  in  these  instances  to  do  so  in 
order  to  enhance  the  military  power  of  Judah,  how 
comes  it  to  pass  that  he  does  so  only  in  three  instances  ? 
Why  should  Abijah's,  Asa's,  and  Jehoshaphat's  armies  be 
set  down  at  so  high  a  figure,  while  no  such  monstrous 
bodies  of  troops  are  assigned  to  the  pious  Hezekiah,  or 
even  to  David  the  most  distinguished  of  the  military  mon- 
archs  of  Israel?  According  to  1  Chron.  xxvii.  David, 
though  he  reigned  over  the  undivided  people,  had  but 
288,000  men  enrolled  in  his  standing  army ;  and  these 
were  not  liable  to  be  called  out  together  at  any  one  time 
but  were  distinguished  into  twelve  divisions,  each  of 
which  served  but  a  month  at  a  time. 

5.  The  most  remarkable  instance  of  discrepancy  in 
numbers  in  the  entire  Old  Testament,  is  of  such  a  nature 
as  to  demonstrate  in  the  most  conclusive  manner,  not 
only  that  this  alleged  disposition  to  exaggerate  affords 
no  satisfactorj^  solution  of  the  phenomenon  in  question, 
but  that  it  is  impossible  that  it  should  have  existed  ;  and 
further,  that  these  discrepancies  can  by  no  possibility  be 
imputed  to  the  original  writers,  but  must  have  been 
introduced  in  the  course  of  subsequent  transcription.  In 
Ezra  ii.  and  Nehemiah  vii,  we  have  two  parallel  accounts, 
or  rather  two  copies  of  the  same  account  of  those  who 
came  up  with  Jerubbabel,  Joshua,  and  others  from  the 
captivity.  And  yet  with  an  agreement  throughout, 
which  shows  that  the  two  lists  are  identical  in  origin, 
there  are  the  following  differences  : 


Ezra  iL 

Nehemiah  vii. 

The  Children  of  Arah, 

ver.   5 

775 

ver.  10        652. 

"             "  Pahath-Moab, 

"      6 

2,812 

"    11      2,818. 

"            « Zattu, 

«      8 

945 

«'    13         845. 

TIIK    WAR    ON    MIDIAN.  183 


Ezra  ii. 

Xel 

lemiah  vii. 

The  Children  of  Bani  (Binnui), 

ver.  10 

642 

ver.  15 

648. 

"    Bebai, 

" 

11 

023 

"    16 

628. 

"           "    Azgad, 

(( 

12 

1,222 

"    17 

2,322. 

"           "    Adonikam, 

It 

13 

666 

"    18 

667. 

"           "    Bigvai, 

(( 

14 

2,056 

"    19 

2,067. 

"    Adin, 

(( 

15 

454 

"    20 

655. 

"          " ,  Bezai, 

« 

17 

323 

"    23 

324. 

"    Hashum, 

« 

19 

223 

"    22 

328. 

Bethlehem  and  Netophah, 

u 

21, 

22     179 

"    26 

188. 

Bethel  and  Ai, 

i( 

23 

223 

«    32 

123. 

The  Children  of  Magbish, 

(( 

30 

156 

wanting. 

Led,  Hadid  and  Oho, 

" 

33 

725 

"    37 

721. 

The  Children  of  Senaah, 

u 

35 

3,630 

"    38 

3,930. 

"  Asaph, 

11 

41 

128 

"    44 

148. 

"             "  The  Porters, 

ii 

42 

139 

"    45 

13S. 

«            *'  Delaiah,  etc., 

il 

60 

652 

"    62 

642. 

According  to  both  Ezra  ii.  64,  and  Keh.  vii.  66,  '  the 
whole  congregation  together  was  42,360 ;'  and  yet  the 
total  of  the  numbers  given  in  detail  by  Ezra  is  only 
29,818,  and  by  Nehemiah,  31,089.  The  traditional 
explanation  of  these  missing  thousands  is  perhaps  the 
true  one,  that  they  were  citizens  of  the  ten  tribes,  or  per- 
sons whose  genealogy  could  not  be  traced.  But  the  dis- 
crepancies between  the  two  accounts  still  remain.  And 
yet  we  do  not  suppose,  that  Colenso  himself  would  sus- 
pect the  writer  of  either  book  of  having  intentionally 
falsified  the  numbers.  They  are  just  such  errors  as 
would  naturally  and  almost  unavoidably  arise  in  the 
repeated  transcription  of  such  long  lists  of  unfamiliar 
names  and  numbers.  But  the  idea  of  systematic  altera- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  exaggerating,  or  for  any  purpose 
whatever,  is  absolutely  precluded. 

6.  The  occurrence  of  this  class  of  textual  errors  is  very 
readily  explained,  if  we  assume  with  the  majority  of 
commentators,  that  numbers  were  originally  not  writtcD 


18-i  THE    WAR   ON    MIDIAN. 

out  ill  full,  but  were  expressed  by  numerical  signs  or 
symbols,  and  probably  by  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  to 
which  numerical  values  were  attached.  It  is  known  that 
the  Jews  did  use  their  letters  in  this  way,  not  only 
because  the  modern  Jews  so  employ  them,  but  upou  the 
Maccabean  coins  the  dates  are  expressed  by  letters,  and 
not  by  words.  The  Greeks  made  a  similar  use  of  their 
letters.  And  that  this  was  not  original  with  them,  but 
was  borrowed  from  the  Phoenicians,  from  whom  they 
received  their  alphabet,  appears  from  the  fact,  that  their 
letters  so  used  correspond  in  value  with  those  of  the 
Hebrews  and  Sernitic  nations  generally  ;  and  that  those 
letters  which  were  dropped  in  ordinary  use  as  signs  of 
sound  were  nevertheless  retained  as  symbols  of  number. 
Kow,  as  Jt  means  1,  and  fi^  1,000,  T  4,  and  ^  200,  n  5, 
and  n  400,  i  20,  and  3  50,  etc.  etc.,  it  is  easy  to  see  how 
a  slight  mistake  in  a  letter  would  introduce  a  serious  dis- 
crepancy in  numbers.  And  it  is  well  known  how  unre- 
liable figures  often  are  in  modern  printing  and  telegraph- 
ing in  spite  of  all  the  pains  which  are  taken  to  secure 
accuracy.  How  can  it  be  thought  surprising,  then,  that 
numerical  errors  should  creep  into  the  text  of  a  book 
which  was  for  ages  dependent  for  its  preservation  upon 
manual  transcription  ?  The  wonder  rather  is,  that  these 
errors  should  be  of  so  rare  occurrence,  and  of  such  an 
unimportant  character  as  they  are. 

7.  But  further,  even  if  the  inspiration  of  the  author  of 
Chronicles  were  to  be  reduced  to  that  low  and  modified 
form,  in  which  some  have  been  disposed  to  hold  the  doc- 
trine, of  merely  securing  the  correctness  of  all  that  was 
distinctively  religious,  but  not  of  vouching  for  the  truth 
of  what  was  merely  historical,  statistical,  or  scientific,  the 
writer  being  in  these,  just  as  other  men  would  be,  left  to 


THE    WAR    ON    MIDI  AN.  185 

the  exercise  of  his  unaided  faculties  ;  or  even  if  the  ration- 
alistic hypothesis  were  accepted  out  and  out,  and  the 
inspiration  of  the  "writer  were  denied  altogether,  still  the 
charge  brought  by  Colenso  would  be  absolutely  incred- 
ible and  indefensible.  There  is  no  book  in  the  Bible, 
in  which  such  constant  appeals  are  made  to  collateral 
sources  of  information,  as  in  Chronicles.  At  the  close  of 
each  reign  reference  is  made  either  to  the  public  annals 
of  the  kingdom,  or  other  extant  histories  contempora- 
neous with  the  events  recorded,  both  as  confirming  the 
facts  here  stated  and  as  containing  much  that  is  here 
merely  alluded  to  or  is  omitted  altogether.  How  could 
a  writer,  expecting  or  desiring  that  his  work  should  be 
accepted  as  a  genuine  history  of  his  nation,  make  appeals 
of  this  sort  to  pre-existing  works  within  reach  of  his  read- 
ers, and  at  the  same  time  be  guilty  of  wilful  falsifica- 
tions of  the  record,  and  even  betray  such  a  "  systematic 
habit  of  exaggeration  in  respect  of  numbers"  that  a  South- 
African  bishop  can  detect  him  in  it  with  no  collateral 
aids  whatever,  by  his  simple  skill  in  arithmetic  ?  Credat 
Colenso^  non  ego. 

This  matter  of  the  numbers  of  the  sacred  text,  with 
which  Colenso  deals  so  flippantly,  and  so  superficially, 
we  have  not  scrupled  to  present  thus  broadly  upon  our 
pages.  It  is  one  of  the  most  plausible  objections,  which 
those  who  deny  the  inspiration  of  the  writers  of  Holy 
Scripture  have  to  allege  ;  and  we  have  spread  it  out  in 
its  details  in  its  full  force  much  more  strongly  than  Co- 
lenso seems  to  have  dreamed  that  it  was  capable  of  being 
exhibited.  And  what  does  it  amount  to  ?  Why,  simply 
this,  that  in  a  very  few  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, those,  namely,  which  deal  most  largely  in  num- 
bers, transcribers  have  made  occasional  mistakes  in  the 


186  THE    WAR    OX    ]^[IDIAN. 

jfigures ;  and  tliis  in  matters  which  are  of  no  sort  of  mo- 
ment as  regards  even  the  general  facts  of  the  history,  not 
to  sa}^  the  truths  and  doctrines  of  the  divine  revelation. 
A  man,  whose  faith  in  the  Bible  as  the  word  of  God  is 
disturbed  by  such  a  cause,  would  dispute  the  reality  of 
all  the  charges  in  his  shop-keeper's  bill,  because  the  clerk, 
iu  adding  up  one  of  the  columns,  has  made  the  mistake 
of  a  cent.  The  very  character  of  these  numerical  errors, 
and  the  mode  in  which  they  originated,  further  show  that 
they  are  limited  to  this  specific  thing.  They  imply  no 
general  corruption  or  inaccuracy  of  the  text ;  and  none, 
in  fact,  exists.  It  may  be  affirmed  in  the  most  unquali- 
fied manner,  that  no  work  of  antiquity  has  come  down  to 
us  with  its  text  so  carefully  preserved  and  with  so  many 
helps  for  its  restoration  and  correction,  even  in  the  minu- 
test matters,  as  the  Scriptures. 

But  what  chiefly  shocks  the  Bishop's  soul  is  the  inhu- 
manity of  the  massacre  of  Midian.  And  in  view  of  this 
he  expresses  his  thankfulness,  which  he  expects  will  be 
shared  by  his  readers,  that  his  trenchant  arguments  have 
at  length  disposed  of  the  credibility  of  the  Pentateuch. 
The  oppressive  faith  of  centuries  is  dispelled,  and  man- 
kind can  now  breathe  freely,  since  Colenso  has  arisen. 

"  How  thankful  we  must  be,  that  we  are  no  longer  obliged  to  believe, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  of  vital  consequence  to  our  eternal  hope,  the  story- 
related  in  Num.  xxxi,  where  we  are  told  that  a  force  of  12,000  Israelites 
'  slew  all  the  males  of  the  Midianites,  took  captive  all  the  females  and 
children,  seized  all  their  cattle  and  flocks  (72,000  oxen,  61,000  asses, 
675,000  sheep),  and  all  their  goods,  and  burnt  all  their  cities,  and  all  their 
goodly  castles,' — without  the  loss  of  a  single  man, — and  then,  by  command 
of  Moses,  butchered  in  cold  blood  all  the  women  and  children,  '  except  all 
the  women-children  who  have  not  known  a  man  by  lying  with  him.' 
These  last  the  Israelites  were  to  '  keep  for  themselves.'  " 

*'  The  tragedy  of  Cawnpore,  wliere  300  were  butchered,  would  sink  into 


THE    WAR   ON    MIDIAN.  187 

nothing  compared  with  such  a  massacre,  if  indeed  we  were  required  tc 
believe  it." 


We  do  not  know  that  it  would  relieve  his  mind  in  any 
degree,  if  we  were  to  suggest  to  him  that  the  nation  of 
the  Midianites  was  not  exterminated  notwithstanding. 
We  find  them  strong  enough  at  the  time  of  Gideon  to 
reduce  Israel  to  subjection,  Judges  vi. 

A  human  life  is  an  unspeakably  precious  thing.  To 
destroy  the  life  even  of  a  single  human  being,  without 
just  cause  and  without  rightful  authority,  is  an  atrocious 
crime  in  the  sight  both  of  God  and  man.  The  whole 
civilized  world  shuddered  at  the  barbarities  practised  at 
Cawnpore.  And  yet  at  that  very  time  England  was 
shedding  far  more  blood  than  flowed  in  the  streets  of 
that  wretched  town.  She  was  giving  up  the  lives  of  her 
brave  and  gallant  soldiers,  and  the  world  rang  with 
admiration  of  their  valour.  She  was  mowing  down  by 
thousands  the  rebellious  Sepoys,  and  the  world  confessed 
it  just.  To  maintain  the  integrity  of  her  empire,  to  pre- 
serve order  and  stable  government,  were  ends  for  which 
England  judged  that  lives  might  be  sacrificed,  in  profu- 
sion even,  if  need  be.  The  American  people  are 
engaged  in  a  struggle  at  this  hour  for  the  maintenance 
of  the  government  under  which  they  have  thus  far 
prosperously  lived,  for  the  preservation  of  the  institu- 
tions bequeathed  to  them  by  their  fathers,  for  their 
national  life  and  unity.  Thousands  and  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  valuable  lives  have  been  lost  already.  But  the 
verdict  of  the  nation  still  is  that  no  expenditure  of  life 
or  treasure  is  to  be  regarded  beside  the  momentous  issues 
at  stake.  It  is  the  common  j  udgment  of  mankind,  that 
with  all  the  value  to  be  set  upon  life  there  are  interests 


188  THE    WAR    ON    51IDIAN. 

which  are  worth  purchasing  by  its  loss,  even  upon  an 
extensive  scale. 

Nor  must  it  be  forgotten  that  life  may  be  forfeited  by 
crime,  and  may  then  be  justly  taken  by  competent 
authority.  What  would  be  thought  of  a  man  who  should 
sum  up  the  judicial  executions  in  England,  and  then 
charge  that  such  a  number  of  persons  had,  by  command 
of  the  courts,  been  "  butchered  in  cold  blood  ?" 

Israel  was  the  people  of  God.  In  the  midst  of  abound- 
ing idolatry,  immorality  and  crime,  they  were  selected  to 
be  trained  up  with  reference  to  the  coming  salvation. 
The  germs  of  divine  truth  were  implanted  amongst  them, 
that  they  might  unfold  themselves  and  in  due  time  their 
ripened  fruit  be  given  to  the  world.  To  no  other  people 
is  the  human  race  so  largely  indebted.  Egypt,  Babylon, 
Greece,  and  Rome  had  each  its  work  to  do,  in  prepara- 
tion for  the  present  age.  The  products  of  these  various 
forms  of  civilization  were  successively  poured  into  the 
lap  of  mankind,  and  had  their  share  in  constituting  those 
rich  treasures  of  art  and  learning  and  law,  of  material 
wealth,  and  liberal  culture,  and  stable,  free  and  beneficent 
institutions,  which  the  world  now  enjoys.  But  the 
moulding  hand  of  Israel  has  had  flir  more  to  do  in  deter- 
mining the  present  state  of  the  world  than  all  others 
combined.  The  law  has  gone  forth  from  Zion,  and  its 
controlling  influence  has  been  acknowledged  by  '  many 
people,'  and  '  strong  nations  afar  off,'  Mic.  iv.  2,  3.  The 
religion,  which  has  come  to  us  from  Israel,  is  one  of  the 
most  powerful  and  essential  elements  in  our  existing 
civilization.  To  it  we  owe  our  best  institutions,  our 
noblest  and  most  expansive  ideas,  our  public  security, 
our  social  elevation,  our  domestic  happiness.  This  reli- 
gion is  bringing  the  world  back  to  God  from  its  state  of 


THE    WAR    ON    MIDIAN.  189 

alienation.     It  opens  the  way  for  the  perishing  and  the 
lost  to  everlasting  blessedness. 

The  world-wide  and  immortal  interests  suspended 
upon  the  right  conduct  of  this  scheme  of  saving  mercy, 
with  which  Israel  was  for  the  time  identified,  were  such, 
that  a  land  might  well  be  cleared  of  its  inhabitants  for 
them  to  occupy  it,  if  this  was  necessary  for  its  full 
development,  or  its  successful  issue.  The  Sovereign  Dis- 
poser of  all  events  might  here  enjoin,  what  throughout 
the  history  of  the  world  He  has  again  and  again  per- 
mitted, that  one  nation  should  dispossess  another  of  its 
seats,  and  occupy  them  as  its  own  inheritance. 

The  seclusion  of  Israel  from  other  nations,  into  whose 
idolatries  they  might  be  enticed,  or  whose  example 
would  prove  infectious,  was  an  important  part  of  the 
plan  pursued  in  the  training  of  that  people.  And  this 
rendered  necessary  the  emptying  of  some  land  of  its 
inhabitants,  that  they  might  be  planted  in  it.  This  was 
not  done,  however,  by  an  arbitrary  decree,  which  might 
sweep  off*  the  innocent.  Much  less  in  the  slaughter  of 
the  Midianites  and  the  extermination  of  the  Canaanites, 
do  we  see  the  brutal  ferocity  of  savage  tribes,  led  by 
blood-thirsty  leaders.  It  was  nothing  of  the  sort.  It 
was  just  the  execution  of  a  divine  judicial  sentence.  He, 
who  in  the  history  of  the  world  perpetually  employs  one 
nation  as  the  unconscious  instrument  of  his  judgment 
upon  ajiother,  here  appointed  Israel  to  be  the  conscious 
executioner  of  his  just  decree.  The  iniquity  of  the 
Amorites  was  at  length  full.  They  had  sunk  to  a  degree 
of  debasement,  execrated  even  in  the  Pagan  world,  and 
they  were  doomed  by  the  Eighteous  Governor  of  all  to 
be  cut  off. 

The  old  dispensation  was  a  period  of  law,  administered 


190  THE    WAR    ON    MIDIAN. 

with,  rigour  and  strict  severity.  The  idea  of  tlie  sacred- 
ness  and  majesty  of  the  divine  law,  the  fearfulness  of  its 
sanctions,  and  the  necessity  of  obedience,  was  the  first 
thing  to  be  inculcated.  This  was  appHed  as  sternly 
to  Israel  themselves  as  to  others.  The  penalty  of  viola- 
ting the  law  of  God  in  a  number  of  prescribed  particulars 
was  death  ;  and  even  in  less  heinous  instances,  the  only 
condition  of  pardon  and  restoration  to  theocratic  privi- 
leges was  the  presentation  of  a  bloody  sacrifice.  Blood 
must  flow  for  sin,  either  that  of  the  transgressor  himself 
or  of  an  accepted  substitute.  The  murmurings  and 
transgressions  of  the  people  in  the  wilderness  were  terri- 
bly avenged.  Pestilence,  fire  from  the  Lord,  and  ser- 
pents taught  the  people  fearful  lessons  of  the  sanctity  of 
the  law  of  God.  And  when  the  crime  of  the  golden  calf 
had  been  committed,  the  sons  of  Levi  were  directed,  Ex. 
xxxii.  25,  '  to  put  every  man  his  sword  by  his  side,  and 
go  in  and  out  from  gate  to  gate  throughout  the  camp, 
and  slay  every  man  his  brother,  and  every  man  his  com- 
panion, and  every  man  his  neighbour.' 

It  was  that  they  might  gain  a  still  deeper  impression 
of  the  stern  demands  of  inexorable  law,  that  Israel  was 
in  this  signal  instance  entrusted  with  the  execution  of 
that  law  upon  others  which  they  were  daily  instructed  to 
apply  to  themselves.  Midian  had  enticed  the  people  to 
the  abominable  and  disgusting  rites  of  their  idolatry. 
For  their  criminal  yielding  to  this  solicitation,  direction 
was  given  to  the  judges  to  put  every  Israelite  to  death 
who  was  joined  to  Baal-peor,  Num.  xxv.  4.  And  a 
plague  broke  out  in  the  camp  which  carried  off  24,000, 
ver.  9.  The  Lord  might  have  punished  Midian,  the  prin- 
cipal and  the  instigator  in  this  transgression,  as  he  pun- 
ished Israel,  by  a  plague  inflicted  immediately  by  his 


THE    WAK    ON    MIDI  AX.  191 

own  hand.  And,  we  presume,  that  even  Colenso  would 
in  that  case  have  shrunk  from  arraigning  the  divine 
righteousness.  He  chose  to  make  his  people  execute  his 
sentence  of  destruction,  that  they  might  thus  write  their 
own  condemnation  in  case  they  transgressed  again  them- 
selves. The  women  were  involved  in  the  same  sentence 
with  the  men,  because  they  were  equally  guilty.  Those 
only  were  spared,  who  were  of  too  tender  an  age  to  have 
been  involved  in  the  crime  or  to  prove  a  future  source 
of  contamination. 

That  Israel  acted  not  as  a  people  impelled  by  a  savage 
thirst  for  blood  and  plunder,  but  as  one  conscious  of  their 
high  commission,  and  doing  the  simple  bidding  of  the 
Supreme,  is  apparent  from  their  conduct  at  the  taking  of 
Jericho,  where  none  of  the  spoils  were  appropriated  by 
the  people  save  the  single  theft  of  Achan,  but  all  went 
into  the  treasury  of  the  Lord.  A  people  possessing  such 
manifest  tokens  of  the  divine  presence,  and  acting  under 
God's  immediate  orders  so  confirmed,  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  one  acting  under  a  furious  and  fanatical 
zeal,  and  converting  its  own  fancies  and  lawless  propen- 
sities into  imaginary  divine  ordinances.  A  people  led 
by  the  pillar  and  the  cloud,  conducted  through  the  Eed 
Sea  and  the  Jordan,  and  miraculously  supported  in  the 
wilderness,  was  not  a  horde  of  fanatics.  And  a  people 
which  received  its  institutions  from  the  flaming  summit 
of  Sinai,  and  which  was  for  forty  years  instructed  by  a 
divinely  appointed  legislator,  was  not  a  lawleas  body  of 
savages. 

Colenso's  further  objection  to  the  narrative,  that  time 
is  not  allowed  for  all  the  transactions  recorded,  scarcely 
needs  an  answer.  It  is  based  on  a  double  assumption  : 
First,  that  all  the  transactions  were  successive,  and  none 


192  THE    WAR    CN    MIDIAN. 

of  them  contemporaneous ;  and,  Secondly,  that  each  of 
them  must  have  occupied  the  length  of  time,  which  he 
arbitrarily  assigns  to  it.  As  neither  of  these  assumptions 
is  capable  of  proof,  the  objection  amounts  to  nothing. 


CONCLUDING  EEMARKS. 

"We  have  now  reached  the  end  of  our  task.  We  have 
gone  through  the  whole  of  what  Colenso  has  to  adduce 
against  the  credibility  and  authority  of  the  Pentateuch. 
And  we  cannot  help  exclaiming,  Is  it  for  this  that  he 
would  have  us  give  up  our  faith  in  the  Bible  ?  Is  it  for 
this  that  he  has  abandoned  his  own  ? 

As  we  write  these  lines  we  learn  that  another  book 
of  his  has  made  its  appearance,  which  is  represented  to 
be  more  open  and  virulent  in  its  assault  upon  the  Scrip- 
tures than  that  which  we  have  now  reviewed.  We  pity 
the  man  from  our  heart.  We  fear  that  never  having  had 
any  thorough,  well-grounded  religious  convictions,  he 
has  now  made  utter  and  hopeless  shipwreck  of  the  faith. 
He  would  appear  to  have  so  encircled  himself  with  his 
miserable  sophisms,  as  to  have  lost  even  the  conception 
of  the  possibility  of  an  honest  and  intelligent  faith  in 
others.  To  his  disordered  brain  every  thing  is  reeling, 
and  he  fancies  every  one  else  to  be  as  unstable  as  him- 
self. He  has  no  idea  but  that  bishops  and  clergy  and 
churchmen  are  all  secretly  cherishing  the  doubts,  which 
he  alone  has  had  the  courage  and  the  honesty  openly  to 
express. 

We  do  not  know  what  Colenso  may  have  said  in  his 
new  book  and  we  do  not  care.  Our  aim  is  answered  as 
completely  by  what  we  have  now  done,  as  if  he  had 

9 


194  CONCLUDINa  REMARKS. 

written  a  thousand  books  and  we  had  answered  them  all. 
We  have  shown,  we  believe,  his  utter  incapacity  to  deal 
with  the  questions  which  he  professes  to  handle.  We 
have  spent  no  epithets  upon  him.  We  have  uttered  no 
denunciation.  We  have  simply  examined  his  statements 
and  his  arguments :  and  if  such  a  fact  is  capable  of  dem- 
onstration, we  have  demonstrated  that  he  has  neither 
the  candour,  the  learning,  nor  the  ability  to  discuss  the 
topics  which  he  has  undertaken  to  treat  and  upon  which 
he  pronounces  so  oracularly. 

We  have  but  a  single  remark  to  add :  and  that  is,  that 
Colenso  grievously  deceives  himself  as  to  the  conse- 
quences which  result  from  his  position.  He  imagines 
that  he  can  give  up  all  faith  in  the  historical  truth  of  the 
Bible,  all  faith  in  it  as  a  direct  revelation  from  God,  and 
yet  that  the  religion  of  the  Bible  may  remain  in  its  integ- 
rity and  power.  There  never  was  a  greater  mistake. 
Undermine  the  truth  and  the  divine  authority  of  the 
Scriptures,  and  everything  is  gone.  If  the  Scriptures 
are  not  an  infallible  communication  from  God,  but  a  mere 
record  of  the  religious  convictions  of  fallible  men,  and 
the  truth  or  the  falsity  of  whatever  they  contain  must  be 
judged  of  by  "  the  voice  of  truth  within  "  our  hearts, 
then  indeed  we  are  reduced  to  a  most  miserable  plight. 
Everything  is  involved  in  doubt,  and  uncertainty,  and 
darkness. 

Colenso  tells  us  "  that  we  must  all,  and  we  may  all, 
depend  entirely  on  our  Father's  mercy  and  come  as 
children  to  his  footstool  continually  for  light  and  life,  for 
help  and  blessing,  for  counsel  and  guidance."  So  we 
may,  if  the  Scriptures  are  the  very  word  of  God.  But 
if  they  are  not,  who  can  assure  us  of  all  this  ?  Who  can 
tell  us  whether  this  awful  and  mysterious  silence,  in 


CONCLUDING   REMARKS.  195 

which  the  Infinite  One  has  wrapped  himself,  portends 
mercy  or  wrath?  Who  can  say  to  the  troubled  con- 
science, whether  He,  whose  laws  in  nature  are  inflexible 
and  remorseless,  will  pardon  sin  ?  Who  can  answer  the 
anxious  inquiry  whether  the  dying  live  on  or  whether 
they  cease  to  be  ?  Is  there  a  future  state  ?  And  if  so, 
what  is  the  nature  of  that  untried  condition  of  being  ? 
K  there  be  immortal  happiness,  how  can  I  attain  it  ?  If 
there  be  an  everlasting  woe,  how  can  it  be  escaped? 
Let  the  reader  close  his  Bible  and  ask  himself  seriously 
what  he  knows  upon  these  momentous  questions  apart 
from  its  teachings.  What  solid  foundation  has  he  to  rest 
upon  in  regard  to  matters,  which  so  absolutely  transcend 
all  earthly  experience,  and  are  so  entirely  out  of  the 
reach  of  our  unassisted  faculties  ?  A  man  of  facile  faith 
may  perhaps  delude  himself  into  the  belief  of  what  he 
wishes  to  believe.  He  may  thus  take  upon  trust  God's 
unlimited  mercy,  his  ready  forgiveness  of  transgressors, 
and  eternal  happiness  after  death.  But  this  is  all  a 
dream.  He  knows  nothing,  he  can  know  nothing  about 
it,  except  by  direct  revelation  from  heaven. 

The  question,  therefore,  is  one  of  life  or  death.  We 
will  not,  we  can  not  give  up  our  faith  in  the  Bible.  To 
do  so  is  to  surrender  ourselves  to  blank  despair.  It  is  to 
blot  out  the  sun  from  the  heavens  aud  extinguish  at  once 
the  very  source  of  light  and  life  and  holiness.  '  All  flesh 
is  as  grass,  and  all  the  glory  of  man  as  the  flower  of 
grass.  The  grass  withereth  and  the  flower  thereof  falleth 
away ;  but  the  word  of  the  Lord  endureth  forever.' 
'  Search  the  Scriptures  ;  for  in  them  ye  think  ye  have 
eternal  life ;  and  they  are  they  which  testify  of  me.' 

THE  END. 


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rXTBUSHED   BT 

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DOWNING,  A.  J.     THE  FRUITS  AND  FRUIT  TREES  OF  AMERICA, 

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vator. 

DOWNING,  A.  J.        COTTAGE   RESIDENCES: 

A  Series  of  Designs  for  Earal  Cottages  and  Cottage  Villas,  and  their  Gardens  and  Grounds, 
adapted  to  North  America.  Illustrated  by  numerous  engravings.  Third  edition.  8vo. 
Cloth.    $2  50. 

"  Here  are  pleasant  precepts,  suited  to  every  scale  of  fortune  among  us ;  and  general 
maxims  which  may  be  studied  with  almost  equal  profit  by  the  householder  in  the  crowd 
ed  city  and  the  man  of  taste  who  retires  with  a  full  purse,  to  embody  his  own  ideas  of  a 
rural  home." 

in. 
DOWNING,  A.  J.        LINDLEY'S    HORTICULTURE. 
With  additions.    One  voL  12mo.    $1  50. 

DOWNING,  A.  J.        LOUDON'S  GARDENING  FOR  LADIES, 
And  Companion  to  the  Flower  Garden.    By  Mrs.  Loudon.    12mo.    Cloth.    $1  50. 

DOWNING,  A  J.  WIGHTWICK'S  HINTS  TO  YOUNG  ARCHITECTS, 
Calculated  to  facilitate  their  practical  operation;  with  additional  Notes  and  Hints  to 
Persons  about  Building  in  the  Country.    8vo.    Cloth,    $1  75, 

PARSONS  ON 'the  ROSE. 
The  Rose — Its  History,  Poetry,  Culture,  and  Classification.    With  two  large  colored 
plates,  and  other  engravings.    In  one  vol.  12mo.    New  edition,  with  additions.    Cloth. 
|l  25. 

"This  elegant  volume,  devoted  to  a  subject  of  universal  attractivenesj,  and  exhausting 
most  of  the  learning  which  applies  to  it,  deserves  a  wide  popularity." 

TII. 

KEMP  ON  LANDSCAPE  GARDENING. 

tlow  to  Lay  Out  a  Garden.  Intended  as  a  general  Guide  in  choosing,,  formh  §v  or  im- 
proving an  estate  (from  &  quarter  of  an  acre  to  a  hundred  acres  in  extent),  with  reference 
to  both  design  and  execution.  By  Edward  Kemp,  Landscape  Gardener,  Birkenhead 
Park.  Greatly  enlarged,  and  illustrated  with  numerous  plans,  sections,  and  sketches  of 
gardens  and  garden  objects.    1  vol.    12mo.    Cloth.    Gilt.    $2  00. 

"  This  is  just  the  book  that  thousands  want."— iV.  T.  Observer. 

"It  should  be  in  the  hands  of  every  one  who  makes  even  the  slightest  pretension*  to 
Gardening." — Phila.  City  Item. 

Vtt.. 

CLAUSSEN.     THE  FLAX  MOVEMENT. 
Its  Importance  and  Advantages;  with  Directions  for  the  Preparation  ot  Flax  Cotton,  and 
the  Cultivation  of  FIjuu    By  the  Chevalier  Claussen.    12mo.    12  cents. 

LIEBIG.     PRINCIPLES   OF  AGRICULTURAL  CHEMISTRY. 
With  special  reference  to  the  late  researches  made  in  England.    1  vol.  12mo,    Cloth.  80<Ji 

*•*  Copieft  will  be  mailed  to  any  address,  a/tid  prepaid,  on  the  receipt  of  the  pric4 
dtiof  atid  Societies  vyill  he  supplied  with  t/te  ■worXs/or  pretnizims,  at  a  discount. 


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